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Demoted Blue Jays star Alek Manoah strikes out 10 in strong Double-A start
Alek Manoah's second minor-league start of the season went a heck of a lot better than his first.
As he eyes an eventual return to MLB, demoted Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Alek Manoah took a big step forward on Sunday during a start for the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats.
Manoah struck out 10 Portland Sea Dogs batters over five innings, surrendering one earned run on three hits and three walks. The right-hander threw 47 of his 82 pitches for strikes, with his fastball sitting at 93 mph, according to Sportsnet's Shi Davidi, who was in New Hampshire for the contest.
The outing was a significant improvement from his last minor-league start, which came for the Florida Complex League Blue Jays on June 27. Manoah was hammered for 11 runs in 2.2 innings in that start against an opposing lineup consisting mostly of teenagers.
Despite the rocky performance at the lowest level of the minor leagues, the Blue Jays still promoted Manoah to Double-A for his next start. Where he goes from here remains to be seen, but it sounds like the 25-year-old has started to regain some of the confidence that made him so imposing on the mound over his first two MLB seasons.
“It's been a lot of ups and downs,” Manoah told Davidi on Sunday. “Being able to figure everything out and understand that there are a lot of people that are rooting for me, having a great support system around me and also understanding there are a lot of people that like to kick me when I’m down.
“And that’s good because that means a lot of people want to see me down and that means they don't want to see me come back up. And I’m ready to come back up. I’m ready to be a tiger. I’m ready to be a horse on that mound and I'm ready to help our team win, you know?”
Those words have to be encouraging to Blue Jays fans, who saw their Opening Day starter and 2022 Cy Young finalist demoted on June 6 after he posted a 6.36 ERA over 13 starts in 2023.
The team has mainly been using a four-man rotation in Manoah's absence, with Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, Jose Berrios and Yusei Kikuchi picking up the slack. Reliever Trevor Richards has chipped in to lead bullpen days when necessary.
Getting an improved Manoah back would be a huge boost for a Blue Jays team that has not lived up to expectations this season. Toronto entered 2023 with World Series aspirations but currently sits in fourth place in the American League East and out of the wild-card picture with a 45-40 record.
