Manoah's so good, even misfires work

The nastiness of Alek Manoah was most evident Friday on a pitch that got away from him.

In the third inning, Manoah spun a slider that started in an enticing spot for Francisco Mejía before it quickly darted somplace unhittable. But Mejía had already committed, bringing his bat around for strike three on a pitch that smacked off his shin guard.

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“Usually we try to throw it back-foot, and I think that one was front-foot,” Manoah said with a smile. “So it wasn’t by design. But it was pretty cool to see that.”

Making his first start following a five-game suspension, Manoah tossed seven scoreless innings of three-hit ball in an 11-1 win over the Rays at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, N.Y. His strikeout of Mejía marked seven in a row, which set a Blue Jays record, and his 43 strikeouts overall are the most of any Toronto pitcher in his first seven starts (passing Sean Reid-Foley’s 42).

Manoah allowed the second batter of the game, Ji-Man Choi, to reach with a full-count walk. The Rays didn’t put another runner on base until the sixth, when a blooper from Mejía rolled off the outstretched glove of center fielder Randal Grichuk.

Though Manoah’s changeup, sinker and four-seamer all had plenty of life, nothing moved quite like his slider on Friday. He sensed how special it was almost right away, and the Rays hardly stood a chance.

"It had a real good feel out of my hand, [to go] for strikes early in the count and put guys away late,” Manoah said. “So I was like, ‘Hey, let’s keep throwing it until they can hit it.’”

By the end of his outing, Manoah had garnered a staggering 41 percent whiff rate, including 11 whiffs on 22 swings against his slider. At its best, the slider embodies a curveball with a little more bite, sitting in the low 80s. Interestingly enough, that’s about where the Rays sat against Manoah: Their average exit velocity was 85.4 mph, with four hard-hit balls out of 14 put in play.

His only modicum of stress came with two on in the seventh, when his pitch count climbed to triple digits for the first time in his big league career. In a righty-righty matchup against Manuel Margot, likely the rookie’s final batter no matter what, Manoah coaxed a grounder to short to close out the inning.

The vote of confidence from manager Charlie Montoyo was important to Manoah.

“I knew I had the stuff, the will and the competitiveness,” he said. “Everything was feeling good. So it was just great to see [Montoyo] let me go and get myself out of that.”

The career-high pitch count (109) was easier for the Blue Jays to stomach because of Manoah’s six days of rest following his suspension. In Manoah’s mind, 109 pitches isn’t even noteworthy.

"Did you see my college stats?” the 2019 first-rounder from West Virginia asked a reporter after the game. “I averaged 118 pitches my last 10 starts in college. I’m built for this.”

That may be so, but the Blue Jays are monitoring his workload constantly. A hundred-plus pitches will not be the norm, at least not right now.

“We’re not gonna do that all the time,” Montoyo explained. “But today was the perfect time: pitching a great game, throwing a shutout. He was in control the whole time.”

Toronto was in control of the game the whole time, too, after plating six runs in the first two frames. That included a two-run homer from George Springer, who was making his first start in the cleanup spot since 2015. Marcus Semien later homered, his 21st (most among MLB second basemen), and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his 27th (second in MLB).

The standout in this one was Manoah, though, in what was definitively the best start of his young career. Friday was a put-it-all-together performance, which paired well with his natural pep.

“It’s awesome,” Montoyo said. “It’s contagious. I mean, you don’t teach that. He has it, and you don’t want to take that away from the kid. He’s coming into the dugout and [saying], ‘Let’s get more runs.’ … It’s fun for me to watch.”