TORONTO — The regularity with which Alek Manoah delivers quality starts makes it almost too easy to take what he’s doing for granted. Really, it’s not this easy, especially for a sophomore pitcher driving up a career-high innings haul every five days, yet there’s the Toronto Blue Jays right-hander never missing a turn, battling his ass off, carrying his team along the way.
Key to his remarkable season is that even on the rare occasions when he isn’t straight shoving, he’s still finds a way to be really good, the way he was while grinding out six gutsy innings of one-run ball in Sunday’s 5-4 Toronto Blue Jays loss to the Baltimore Orioles.
Only a rare Jordan Romano blip — he allowed the first four batters to reach, the last being an Adley Rutschman two-run single and a Jesus Aguilar RBI base hit in his fifth blown save of the season — prevented Manoah’s effort from securing a three-game sweep.
A comeback attempt in the bottom of the ninth fell just short for the Blue Jays (83-64), as George Springer missed a game-tying homer by inches, settling for a run-scoring double that made it a one-run game. After a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. walk, Felix Bautista induced a sharp Bo Bichette groundout to end it.
The loss was only their fifth this month, a surge that ensures that they’ll head into the next week ahead of the Seattle Mariners (80-64), who were at the Los Angeles Angels, for the top wild-card spot and six games clear of the fourth-place Orioles (76-69).
Still, it made for a disappointing ending to a gruelling 5-3 homestand that included a day-night doubleheader Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Blue Jays appeared to be set after Guerrero Jr.’s solo shot in the seventh opened a 3-1 lead before a Rogers Centre crowd of 41,301.
But the toll of a busy stretch perhaps began showing as Adam Cimber allowed an Aguilar solo shot in the eighth before Romano, absent his usual command and plus slider, got burned for a three-spot. Without a fifth starter, the Blue Jays have run three bullpen days in the past two weeks, no doubt a contributing factor.
Manoah allowed only four hits but also walked a season-high-tying four, which left him time and again dodging traffic to avoid significant damage.
Some strong defence, first and foremost Teoscar Hernandez’s leaping catch against the right-field wall to rob Anthony Santander in the first, certainly helped. But he also pitched himself out of trouble in two key spots: inducing a Santander pop up and striking out Gunnar Henderson with two on and one out in the second, and popping up Robinson Chirinos and getting Cedric Mullins to fly out after Jorge Mateo’s RBI double left runners at second and third in the fourth.
Those moments rested against a Blue Jays rally in the third that was snuffed out after Bichette’s RBI single — when Matt Chapman hit into the 10th triple play in franchise history — and Danny Jansen’s solo shot in the fourth that restored a 2-1 advantage.
Manoah’s performance has been a constant throughout a season of wild swings for the Blue Jays, with Sunday’s outing marking hi 23rd quality start of the year. While by no means a perfect stat, the fact 23 of his 29 outings have hit that benchmark is indicative of the 24-year-old’s steadiness.
Consider that across all those starts, he hasn’t allowed more than four earned runs, and that’s only happened four times. And just six times has he gone less than six innings, never throwing fewer than five frames.
It’s his dependability that’s helped underpin the success of those outings, as the Blue Jays ran out three bullpen games to cover the vacant fifth spot in the rotation over the past couple of weeks.
Manoah was without Alejandro Kirk, who ran the bases Saturday but was given another day to recover from his hip tightness. He threw to Jansen for the first time this season.
