NEW YORK — If Alek Manoah’s MLB career finished right where it began, atop a Yankee Stadium mound on a crystal-clear Thursday afternoon last May, he would’ve been cool with it.
If he looked so hopelessly out of place against the world’s best hitters, serving up missile after missile over outfield walls, that no MLB club would ever give him another opportunity, he would’ve understood. If he threw only one pitch and blew out his arm. If the earth opened up beneath him and swallowed him whole. If, say, mid-delivery he was snatched up and lifted into the Bronx sky by a soaring pterodactyl, carried off never to be seen again like some horrible dream that keeps him up at 5:00 a.m. He would’ve been good with it.
At least that’s how he felt going in. It was the strangest thing. Manoah had no nerves taking that hallowed mound for the biggest start of his life 11 months ago. He wasn’t anxious; he didn’t worry about how many people were watching; he didn’t fear failure. Even when his brother, Erik, whose pursuit of the same MLB dream topped out at double-A, texted him the night before and told him how proud he was of his little bro for actually getting there, for ensuring that MLB history would forever say a Manoah threw a pitch to a big-league hitter, the pressure to perform didn’t rise.
Manoah ran out to that mound to make his MLB debut feeling like he’d already won, feeling free. No stage fright at all. And then DJ LeMahieu stepped in the box.
“All of it. All at once,” Manoah remembers. “And I can’t find the zone. Four pitches. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And I remember getting the ball back, and I was like, ‘Hey, you better lock it in right here. Because I don’t want to go back to triple-A tomorrow. And I looked at Bo [Bichette,] and I was like, ‘All right, let’s play some baseball now.’”
And off he went. Manoah struck out the very next batter on three pitches; then he sat down Aaron Judge; then he went six scoreless with seven punchouts and won his team a 2-0 result; then he dominated the White Sox, the Red Sox, the Rays; then he finished second among MLB rookie starters with a 3.22 ERA; then he spent an off-season in the gym he co-owns with Erik training, growing, determined to improve; then, on Monday night, he stepped back up on that same Yankee Stadium mound where he debuted to begin a six-month quest to try and top it.
LeMahieu greeted him again. But this time, no rush of nerves all at once. No four-pitch walk. Only three. Boom, boom, boom. First strikeout of the season. First, on a night Manoah mirrored his debut with another six scoreless and seven punchouts, winning his team a 3-0 result. He allowed only three balls out of the infield; only one in play with a triple-digit exit velocity; no hits aside from a second-inning single. George Springer was timely, providing all the offence with a two-run homer in the third and an RBI double in the seventh. But Manoah was exceptional.
Yet, he wasn’t flawless. The first two innings were a breeze, but Manoah lost the zone in the third, walking the bases loaded with two out before breaking Giancarlo Stanton’s bat and getting a phenomenal play from Bichette behind him to escape the jam. And he was still missing spots in the fourth, landing pitches a little too far off the plate to lefties, who accounted for three of his four walks.
But the fifth was a breeze, and he struck out a pair in the sixth, finishing his night sitting down nine consecutively on his third trip through. You can be a little scattershot if you’re also going to be so effective. Up to 96-m.p.h. with his fastballs, Manoah played sliders and changeups off four-seamers and sinkers to rack up swinging strikes — 16 in all — with each of his pitches. And he appears to have made significant strides with his changeup in particular, which Manoah threw 17 per cent of the time — a higher usage than in any of his 20 starts last season
Manoah tweaked his grip on that pitch this winter, seeking a bit more life. And he appears to have found it with an 82 RPM increase in its spin rate year-over-year. He’s found confidence in it, too. Manoah used it against lefties in any count and he even got right-handed slugger Giancarlo Stanton to pop one up in the second inning.
He’s getting better, Manoah is. As he should be. It’s too easy to forget that at this time last year, preparing for his debut in the Bronx, Manoah had thrown only 17 innings as a professional, all of them at low-A. He’d pitched well at the Blue Jays alternate site in 2020 and made a massive impression during 2021 spring training, but he’d still yet to prove anything — even to himself.
As he bum-rushed his way to an MLB call-up following three undeniable mid-May performances at triple-A, striking out 27 and walking only three over 18, one-run innings, he was still raw, untested, developing. It was one thing to carve up 20-year-olds at A-ball, and even to thrive at triple-A like he did. But it was going to be another to face big-leaguers for the first time in a game that counts beneath Yankee Stadium’s white frieze.
And it was all stacked against him that day. Don’t you remember? How the Blue Jays were coming off a six-game losing streak? How Springer, Alejandro Kirk, and half the team’s bullpen had just landed on the injured list? How another young, up-and-coming starter, Nate Pearson, had just flamed out in his 2021 debut?
How most of the hitters in New York’s lineup had faced Manoah twice in spring training and knew exactly what he’d try to do to them? How the Yankees cancelled the game as scheduled the day prior due to the threat of rain, disrupting Manoah’s routine and forcing him to sit with the pressure of it all for another night ahead of a double-header?
“I remember throwing in the outfield that day — the day that it got canceled. I’m looking around and the sun is shining. Like, there ain’t no rain coming,” Manoah remembers. “And there’s only one reason you cancel a game on a guy’s debut. It’s like, ‘Hey, we know you lost sleep last night. Go lose sleep again tonight.’”
But he didn’t miss a blink. He knew it could only go one way. How could he fail? Not coming from where he came from, sharing an air mattress with Erik and their mother, Susana, in his grandmother’s one-bedroom apartment because they didn’t have a place of their own.
Not after all the sacrifices Susana made to get him there, skipping dinners because she didn’t have money left over to feed herself after putting food on the table for her boys; repurposing the same old catcher’s equipment every little league season because she couldn’t afford anything new; waking Alek up at 6:00am for the ride to a travel ball game she’d arranged with a coach because she had to work multiple jobs that day.
Not here, in the Bronx, facing the team most of his family grew up fans of. Not in front of all that family, stacked 40 deep in a section up the third base line with distant relatives, friends, friends of friends, everyone from back in the day. Not while they were causing a scene after every strike, jumping, yelling, and bringing life to a mostly empty stadium.
The broadcast that day showed the Manoah’s just as much as Manoah himself. But the really good footage is on the big right-hander’s phone, captured by those who were there amidst the fray. The frame shaking as everyone, even Manoah’s grandmother, a life-long New York fan who’d never been to the team’s new stadium in the Bronx and almost wore her Yankee hat, lost their minds while the kid who grew up betting on himself got strike three and went strutting off the mound. Manoah still watches those videos sometimes and cries.
“I get emotional about it. Because not many people from where I come from step on a big-league mound,” Manoah says. “That moment wasn’t just for me. Everybody there went through a situation with me, with my family. They’ve seen some crazy shit. And now they’re at Yankee Stadium and I’m striking out Aaron Judge. Like, how else are you going to react but going crazy and yelling?
“I plan on having a great career, you know? But going into that game, it was like, if this is the last one, we’re good with that. Because my mom, she’ll never forget that moment. And for us, you don’t know how long good things are going to last. We’ve had so many negative things happen in life. It’s like, enjoy the good ones. Don’t take it for granted.”
Monday, fewer than 11 months later, he was back on that hallowed mound, starting season two of his career the same way he started season one. DJ LeMahieu in the box. Boom, boom, boom. Six scoreless. Seven punchouts. Winning his team a 3-0 result. And off he goes.
