ANAHEIM, Calif. — The 29th start of Alek Manoah’s young career fell on the one-year anniversary of his big-league debut, and to contextualize how remarkable his performance since has been, consider that he appeared in only nine minor-league games before his promotion.
The cancellation of the 2020 minor-league season due to COVID-19 is partly responsible for that, of course, but that only adds to the uniqueness of his trajectory. While it’s easy to call him a unicorn, because in many ways he is, there are some wider lessons the Toronto Blue Jays can draw from his rapid ascent, too.
“Maybe it’ll change the progress of certain guys with the high-performance group and the way we monitor guys now,” said pitching coach Pete Walker. “There’s no more cookie-cutter, this is what you need to do in the minor leagues. If someone is physically ready, they’re bouncing back, they’re showing signs of being able to handle a workload, then those guys may be pushed a little bit more. If something’s coming from Alek’s situation, it would be that.”
Food for thought, certainly, given some of the big arms the Blue Jays currently have in A-ball, and as Manoah continues to cement himself among the game’s best young starters. His six innings of nine-strikeout brilliance in Friday night’s 4-3 win over the Los Angeles Angels was the latest demonstration of both how far he’s come and how further development can still take him to another level.
Manoah came into the outing with splits of .111/.146/.211 versus righties and .284/.351/.386 versus lefties and he continued that trend against the Angels, with their five left-handed hitters responsible for the three runs, two earned, against him.
Andrew Velazquez cashed in Luis Rengifo, who singled and took second on a Raimel Tapia error in the second, Jared Walsh hit a solo shot in the third and Tyler Wade led off the fifth with his first homer of the season, as the lefties went a combined 6-for-14 against Manoah. Meanwhile, righties Taylor Ward, Mike Trout, Max Stassi and Juan Lagares were 1-for-12 with eight strikeouts.
Most of the damage came on fastballs, save for Walsh’s homer, which came on a middle-down changeup — an offering that’s been a focal point for Manoah. Coming into the outing, lefties were batting just .235 against the pitch but were slugging it at a .471 clip, underlining both the potential and risk. His slider, so devastating against righties, was being hit at a .300/.500 rate versus southpaws while his sinker was .462/.462, although he used one against Walsh to get a critical out in the fifth.
Trout doubled with one out in the inning and took third when Lourdes Gurriel Jr., threw to an uncovered second base as the Blue Jays were in a four-man outfield. Bo Bichette then fielded a Walsh grounder to a drawn-in infield and threw home to get Trout at the plate. He was initially called safe but replay overturned the call.
Gurriel had tied the game 2-2 in the top half of the fifth with a run-scoring double, his first RBI since May 14. A pinch-hit Matt Chapman RBI single in the seventh tied the game 3-3 and Gurriel delivered a single in the ninth that was bobbled by Lagares in right, allowing Alejandro Kirk to score the go-ahead run in the ninth.
Jordan Romano then struck out the side in the ninth, getting pinch-hitter Shohei Ohtani swinging on a 96.5 m.p.h. heater above the zone for the final out.
