HOUSTON -- Alek Manoah surrendered two runs in the first inning on Saturday afternoon, but that didn’t worry Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo, because he knew the right-hander would settle in.

Manoah answered the call, and the bullpen did the rest to keep the Astros at bay over the final eight innings as the Blue Jays rallied for a 3-2 win at Minute Maid Park.

“I’m used to that,” Montoyo said of Manoah. “It’s nothing new, and the one thing about that kid is, he throws harder. When you’re about to take him out, he throws 95 [mph] and stuff. He’s fun to watch. It was almost weird when he gave up the two runs. What just happened? ... He’s going to give up runs once in a while. He’s been so good. He’s one of the main reasons we won.”

The Blue Jays secured their fourth straight victory, improving to a 10-5 record -- the most wins through the first 15 games for Toronto since 2018.

Manoah turned in his third consecutive quality start to start the season. He allowed two runs on seven hits with five strikeouts in six innings.

“Just continue to pound the strike zone,” Manoah said. “The biggest thing for me is being able to attack them, and being able to control a really good lineup like [the Astros] is a really good end result.”

Manoah has allowed two runs or fewer and gone six innings in each of his three starts this season.

“I knew he was going to settle down,” Montoyo said. “You have that confidence in him that he was going to settle down, and then that was his game. I wasn’t going to take him out.”

The right-hander gave up a two-run homer to Alex Bregman in the first and settled down to scatter five singles the rest of the way, with no Astros runners getting past first base.

“The biggest thing was going out there and [controlling] the game, [controlling] the pace and [trying] to control as much as I can,” Manoah said. “Those boxes out there are pretty short, so Bregman did a good job of getting in on that pitch. When you face a good lineup like that, you have to give and take where you can. Just being able to sit there and control the game after that was the biggest thing.”

After throwing five shutout innings in Friday night’s 4-3 win, the bullpen followed up with three scoreless frames on Saturday.

David Phelps threw two-thirds hitless innings, and Ryan Borucki retired Michael Brantley -- the only batter he faced -- to end the seventh. Yimi Garcia threw a perfect eighth before Adam Cimber pitched around a leadoff single to earn his first save.

Montoyo said Jordan Romano, who leads the team with eight saves on the season, was unavailable on Saturday.

“I didn’t know who was going to close the game,” Montoyo said. “When you have Bregman, [Yordan] Alvarez, [Yuli] Gurriel, it was easy for me to put Garcia in and save Cimber for the bottom [of the lineup].

“One of the bright spots was also Borucki coming in to get a good hitter like [Michael] Brantley, and he was throwing 97 [mph]. That was great to see, because we are going to need them all.”

Toronto’s bullpen now has the best WHIP in the AL (0.93) and is tied with the Mariners for the lowest opponents’ batting average (.182) in the league.

“They seem to feed off one another,” George Springer, who hit a leadoff homer against his former team, said of the bullpen. “They get big outs in big spots. I have all the faith in those guys in the world. That’s why they are on our team. That’s why they are in the spots that they are in. It’s awesome to watch them work. To [be able to] hand the ball off to whoever it is down there is obviously huge.” 

With the pitching keeping the Astros at bay, the offense did just enough, with Bo Bichette scoring on a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. sacrifice fly in the sixth to tie it at 2, before Santiago Espinal put the Blue Jays ahead with a solo home run into the Crawford Boxes off lefty reliever Blake Taylor in the seventh. 

“I was trying mainly to attack the fastball,” Espinal said. “With two strikes, I was trying to protect and get a good pitch to hit. I saw the slider right away and got a good swing on it. It was a good feeling.”