BALTIMORE — Alek Manoah started getting himself ready for Wednesday’s start right about here:
That was in the moments following Tuesday’s 9-6 Toronto Blue Jays loss to the Baltimore Orioles, one that snapped a five-game winning streak, brought an end to a run of eight straight wins on the road, and, perhaps you heard, got a little testy.
The entirety of this week’s series at Camden Yards was rather emotional, trust be told, from Kevin Gausman’s intense start and confrontation with umpire Jeff Nelson in the first game of Monday’s doubleheader, through Bo Bichette’s rollicking night in the back-half after the Orioles swapped starters four minutes prior to first pitch, to Wednesday’s late-game dust-up.
And as if it was scripted, there was Manoah, the fiery, bellicose 24-year-old, the guy leading the American League in hit batters, the dude who challenged Gerrit Cole to go ahead and make his day a couple weeks ago, lined up to start the finale. September ball; two clubs fighting for one playoff spot; a row the night prior fresh on everyone’s mind. As a baseball fan, you grind through months upon months of pedestrian, ho-hum, dog-day games for moments like this.
Manoah does, too. Every early afternoon in the weight room, every between-starts bullpen, every arm-care session, every pre-game routine that begins an hour prior to first pitch, walking slowly to the outfield in his big blue jacket, a bag of bands and weighted balls dangling from his right hand, that flashy red glove on his left, and a football wedged underneath his arm.
He does it all for games like this, so he can take a big stage and pitch his ass off like he did Wednesday, working eight innings of three-hit, one-run ball in a 4-1 Blue Jays victory over the Orioles.
Manoah had it all. A four-seamer sitting 94-m.p.h. and riding up to 97. A sinker that generated seven whiffs on 14 swings. A slider he was landing on the plate to both righties and lefties when he wasn’t using it to go strike-to-ball. A changeup he didn’t need much, but threw just enough to keep on the minds of the six Orioles batting left-handed against him.
He struck out five, he walked only one, he got eight outs on the ground and seven in the air. He gained velocity as the night went on, throwing his nine hardest pitches in the fourth inning or later, and four of them in the sixth. He was that dude.
He did have to navigate rocky waters early, as Anthony Santander took a two-out, two-strike slider at the knees to right for a single in the first. A pitch later, Ryan Mountcastle shot a 101.1-m.p.h. grounder under Vladimir Guerrero’s Jr.’s glove and into the right-field corner, where it rattled around long enough to plate Santander.
A five-pitch Gunnar Henderson walk followed, spurring a rare first-inning mound visit from Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker. After that brief regroup, Manoah got Kyle Stowers to ground out on three pitches, setting off a run of retiring 14 consecutively.
That got Manoah into the sixth, when Adley Rutschman took a 2-2 heater into the right-centre field gap for a one-out double. Undeterred, Manoah quickly got Santander to ground out chasing a changeup before working backwards to strike out Mountcastle with a pair of heaters played off early-count sliders. And off he went, jogging from the mound.
The seventh was a breeze, and as Manoah took the bump for the eighth sitting on 90 pitches, the look in his eyes was the same as it was in the Blue Jays dugout the night prior.
He popped Rougned Odor straight up and didn’t even watch the ball drop into Matt Chapman’s glove. Two pitches later, he flew Jorge Mateo out to centre and walked off the back of the mound like he’d struck him out. Very next pitch, he grounded Cedric Mullins out to first and didn’t miss a step running through the bag to earn his 24th out himself.
Back in the Blue Jays dugout, his manager, John Schneider, came over for a brief chat and Manoah took a front row seat on the top step as player after player, and coach after coach, came over to slap him on the back.
If the Blue Jays were up by more than three, he might have gone back out for the ninth. But Jordan Romano’s one of the best closers in the baseball, so no sense getting cute. And he went three up, three down to earn his 31st save of the season.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays scratched an early run across in the second inning off Orioles starter Tyler Wells, as Lourdes Gurriel Jr. beat out a throw to first to avoid a double play. That drove in Alejandro Kirk, who led the inning off with a single of his own.
But Gurriel’s effort proved to be costly, as he hit first base awkwardly with his lunging left foot and crash landed beyond the bag in serious discomfort. The outfielder remained down for some time before walking off the field under his own power. The Blue Jays are describing Gurriel’s injury as left hamstring discomfort, which doesn’t tell us much. It’ll be a situation to monitor over the coming days.
The Blue Jays plated three more runs in the fifth, stringing together three singles and two walks while taking advantage of an Rutschman throwing error on an ill-advised pick-off attempt of Kirk at first base.
If you like watching Manoah pitch in big games like these, get used to it. The way things are lining up, the big right-hander’s likely to face nothing but divisional rivals jockeying for post-season position from now until the postseason.
The Blue Jays are kicking around the idea of bringing Manoah back on four days rest Monday in opener of a five-game set at Rogers Centre against the Tampa Bay Rays, neglecting the opportunity to leverage Thursday’s off-day to give him an extra day between outings. If the Blue Jays go that route, it would line Manoah up to then pitch the ensuing weekend at home against the Orioles, during the club’s Sept. 22-25 series at Tropicana Field, and within the three-game set the Blue Jays will host the New York Yankees for near the end of the month.
So make that Rays, Orioles, Rays, Yankees, and then potentially the Orioles again during Toronto’s final series of the season, if it’s a consequential one. If it’s not, and the Blue Jays’ post-season fate is already secure, Manoah’s next outing beyond that would have to wait until, oh, only the Wild Card round. Either way, Manoah’s going to be taking the mound for meaningful, high-leverage games against strong competition every time out from here until the off-season.
By taking three of four from the Orioles this week, the Blue Jays pushed their closest competition for the AL’s third wild-card spot to 4.5 games back. They gained slight ground on the Tampa Bay Rays (1.5 games up) and Seattle Mariners (a half game ahead) in the wild-card standings, partly by virtue of playing one more game than either team did over the three days. And they stayed within striking distance of the York Yankees for an AL East lead that keeps inching closer and closer to being in play.
No ground can be gained on Thursday’s off-day, but Friday presents an appealing opportunity to continue stockpiling wins as the club travels south for a three-game set with the 59-76 Texas Rangers. The Blue Jays will send Ross Stripling and Kevin Gausman to the hill for the first two games but have yet to announce a starter for Sunday’s finale.
There are a couple different ways that one could go. The club may opt to do something similar to what it did in Pittsburgh last weekend, when Trevor Richards started and gave way to a procession of six relievers behind him. That’s the preferred option. But it could also summon a starter from triple-A Buffalo — likely Thomas Hatch, as Casey Lawrence can’t be recalled that soon after being optioned on Monday — depending on how heavily its bullpen is used on Friday and Saturday.
Complicating matters is the lack of an off-day following the Rangers series. Instead, the club will encounter a critical five-games-in-four-days set with the Rays at Rogers Centre starting Monday. That series features a Tuesday doubleheader, and much of the club’s planning centres around having enough pitching to cover off those 18 innings. It’s not a spot a team in the thick of a playoff push ever wants to be in. But it’s one the schedule-makers have forced Toronto to confront.
After a rough outing Tuesday, Mitch White was optioned to triple-A Buffalo Wednesday, allowing the Blue Jays to reinforce an overused bullpen with Zach Pop. But White will remain with the club as it travels to Texas this weekend and likely be re-added to the roster as the 29th player for Tuesday’s doubleheader. He could pitch that day and then return to the fold once his 15 days on option are up on Sept. 21.
But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. The rotation machinations the Blue Jays will work through between now and this time next week will be complicated enough. In the meantime, the club is charting its plans around getting its best arms into its most meaningful games.
That means Manoah against the Rays next week, versus these same Orioles after that, and the Rays again from there. Then, it’s the Yankees before maybe the Orioles again. And if he keeps pitching the way he’s pitching, it would only be the biggest stage of his life after that.
