TORONTO – All things being equal, the Toronto Blue Jays expect Jose Berrios to arrive Saturday night and debut in Sunday’s finale with the Kansas City Royals. To get him here, the team arranged a charter flight that collected Joakim Soria, the reliever acquired from the Arizona Diamondbacks, in Phoenix and then headed to St. Louis to pick up the ace right-hander before turning north.
“I just want to make sure he’s here before I tell you yes,” manager Charlie Montoyo said of whether the club’s prized deadline acquisition would fill the TBA slot in the rotation, “because, as you know, it hasn’t been easy to get in.”
No, it hasn’t but the afternoon after Friday’s emotional homecoming felt a lot more like a normal summer’s day at the Rogers Centre. A crowd of 13,953 once again provided noise and energy beyond its size, with regular “Let’s Go, Blue Jays” chants under a roof that started open, closed due to rain only to peel back once the skies cleared a few innings later, like any other day in the grind.
To that end, Alek Manoah returned from the injured list to throw seven shutout innings in a 4-0 victory, delivering the type of performance that led to his rapid big-league ascension earlier this season. While the Royals lineup isn’t going to scare anybody, the 23-year-old efficiently kept the game under wraps, generating both plenty of swing and miss, with 14 whiffs, and soft contact, which allowed him to get deep into the game after returning from a minor back injury.
His velocity was a touch down from his season average – his four-seamer sat 92.4 m.p.h. instead of the usual 94 – but given his relative lack of work since he slipped and fell on rain-soaked dugout steps in Buffalo, that’s not entirely surprising.
No matter, George Springer staked him to a 1-0 lead by sending Mike Minor’s first pitch of the day into the second deck in left field, and then tripled the advantage with a two-run shot to right-centre in the third. Marcus Semien’s RBI triple in the sixth extended the margin and it was cruise time from there.
Springer finding his comfort zone bodes well for the Blue Jays, who will need him to deliver on the roughly win-and-a-half of production he’s projected to deliver over the final third of the season, but similarly important is Manoah, both in the short and long term.
With doubleheaders looming Aug. 7 against Boston and Aug. 10 at Anaheim, the Blue Jays plan to run a six-man rotation to get through the grind and then map out how to proceed from there. Maximizing Berrios, one of the more durable pitchers in the sport, is a priority and how many innings they can put on Manoah is a question, but as things stand, you’d think he stays.
Getting him through wire-to-wire is also important for next season, when the Blue Jays now have Berrios to pair with Hyun Jin Ryu, along with Ross Stripling and Manoah. That’s a good starting point, Nate Pearson and Thomas Hatch are in that mix somewhere, but a replacement will be needed if Robbie Ray can’t be re-signed and backfilling that quality of performance won’t be easy.
That’s in part why the Blue Jays were willing to ante up both Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson for a season-and-a-half of Berrios. Getting his calibre of starter to sign in the American League East is a difficult task and the Blue Jays now have extra runway in attracting him longer-term.
They’re also more attractive to free agents with him and Ryu fronting a position-player group featuring Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Teoscar Hernandez.
Still, if Manoah can emerge into a mid-rotation or better starter, that will provide the roster with the pivotal financial efficiency of a pre-arbitration pitcher, allowing resources to be directed elsewhere.
Outings like the one he delivered Saturday reinforce the reasons to have faith in the kid, both now and for the down the road, too.
