DUNEDIN, Fla. — It was just 15 fastballs but that was more than enough for Alek Manoah. This was the day he was waiting for.
The Toronto Blue Jays right-hander finished his bullpen session at the club’s player development complex on Friday morning and then walked in to give his catcher, Alejandro Kirk, a hug and a tap on the chest. Meanwhile, the group of onlookers, including members of the Blue Jays’ rotation and coaching staff, began to clap.
This was Manoah’s first time throwing off a mound since May 29, 2024 — a span of 289 days.
“I just thank God for the nine-month journey that it took to get back on that mound,” Manoah said minutes later, the sweat still dripping from his face.
“It’s just a whirlwind of emotions but it feels amazing right now.”
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Friday represented a significant step for Manoah in his return from hybrid Tommy John surgery. He underwent the procedure, which combines the traditional ulnar collateral ligament replacement with an internal brace suture, on June 17 and is now past the darkest days of the recovery process.
Manoah spent the off-season travelling between his home in Miami and the Blue Jays’ facility in Dunedin, Fla. The recovery from Tommy John can be lonely and repetitive but the 27-year-old says he’s been seeking joy in the little things.
At the three-month mark he was able to complete an upper-body workout for the first time, while at the five-month mark he began throwing plyo balls. Last week he was finally able to play catch on back-to-back days.
“It’s very easy for it to seem monotonous and just go through the motions,” Manoah told Sportsnet in a recent interview. “But for me, it’s super exciting to reach each milestone and move on to the next one and then focus on the next one after that.”
Manoah has been leaning on people in his baseball circle who’ve had Tommy John surgery such as former West Virginia teammate Sam Kessler and current Blue Jays reliever Chad Green. They’ve been extremely helpful to the right-hander as he navigates the mental gymnastics of the recovery process.
There have been instances where medical personnel would tell Manoah that he looks free and easy while playing catch, but that tripped him up because he was actually throwing as hard as he could. He checked in with Green and was relieved to hear that the fellow right-hander also dealt with the same thing.
“You’re putting more effort into something but not seeing the results right away,” Green says. “There were certain days or times throughout the process where I was like, ‘Okay, I feel like I should be throwing harder, but it’s not coming out as well as I would hope for.’”
Green underwent Tommy John in 2022 while with the New York Yankees and leaned on his then-teammate Zack Britton, who’d also had the surgery.
“Unfortunately it’s one of the surgeries where a lot of guys have been through it so you have people to lean on,” says Green. “The first six months are the hardest time because you’re not throwing and the days can be very repetitive. When you start throwing, at least feel like you’re playing baseball again.”
That’s where Manoah is right now and he says he’s feeling strong and is past the point of thinking about his arm while letting it rip.
“We need to get this thing moving so every time I hear a coach say, ‘Hey, let’s hold it back,’ I know I’m throwing the shit out of this and that’s a good thing. There’s a lot of confidence in the arm and a lot of confidence in the body.”
Manoah, the 11th overall pick by the Blue Jays in 2019, quickly became an integral member of the Blue Jays rotation when he arrived in Toronto. Over the 2021 and 2022 campaigns, the right-hander posted a 2.60 ERA across 51 starts and 308.1 innings. He finished third in Cy Young voting in 2022 and looked primed to become one of baseball’s best starters.
However, things changed just as swiftly as he struggled mightily in 2023 before having his season cut short by the elbow injury last year.
Manoah is now targeting a return to the Blue Jays during the second half of the season but doesn’t want to fixate on any specific dates in the calendar.
“Everything has gone really well to this point but I do know that in the next [part]of the rehab anything could happen,” he says.
“I just want to focus on the short-term goals and … right now, it’s just attacking those bullpen sessions as well as I can and getting out on the other side of that feeling great. Then, going into live BPs and attacking those.”
