Breaking Down Alek Manoah's 2nd Start Back From the Minors
It's never that easy.
After a month away from the big league spotlight, Alek Manoah returned with a stellar start in Detroit. He cleanly carved the Tigers for six innings, providing hope that the young hurler had re-found form and the Blue Jays rotation was back to five strong.
Tuesday's messy loss to the Padres told a different story. With ejections, spotty defense, controversial strike zones, and a quickly-escalating pitch count, Manoah lasted just three-plus innings in his second start back. The Blue Jays went on to lose 9-1.
"Overall I think the line looked worse than it really was," manager John Schneider said.
Manoah went down to Toronto's Florida complex to fix a few different facets of his game — pitching pace, delivery mechanics, confidence. But, one of his biggest problems in his first half was strike-throwing. His walk rate entering Tuesday (13.8%) was over 5% higher than his career mark.
After posting a season-high 19 first-pitch strikes against the Tigers, Manoah started Tuesday with similar zone-pounding. He had two strikes on San Diego's first batter before most Jays fans even got to the front of the dollar hot dog line. But as the crowd settled into their seats, Manoah lost the zone. He missed with 21 pitches in the first inning alone. He walked Fernando Tatis Jr., allowed a homer to Juan Soto, and handed Xander Bogaerts a free pass, too. Manoah finished his outing with five walks to no strikeouts.
"Would've liked to be in the zone a little bit more," Manoah said. "But just gotta continue to compete."
While the third-year slogged through long innings, he didn't get much help around him. Multiple times throughout his three-plus innings, Manoah visibly disagreed with home plate umpire Malachi Moore's calls, staring in after borderline pitches and bouncing off the mound after presumptive strikes. Pitching coach Pete Walker clearly didn't love the zone, either, earning an ejection for some overheard words during a second-inning mound visit.
"We're gonna always defend our guys," Schneider said. "There's some close calls and sometimes they go your way sometimes they don't."
Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker has been ejected from tonight's game. pic.twitter.com/Rkylk7OwOI
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) July 18, 2023
The defense behind Manoah was far from stellar, too. George Springer misread (and mis-dove at) a liner in the second inning and Matt Chapman bobbled a soft grounder in the fourth. But, suspect strike zones and misplayed grounders can't account for five walks and four runs in three innings of work.
Even when he was locating in the zone, Manoah's stuff wasn't particularly effective. He earned just six whiffs on 92 pitches (40 swings), posting a called-strike plus whiff rate of 16% (~30% is considered good). Last year, Manoah's swing-and-miss rate sat at 24.8%. On Tuesday, it was 15%. He could get ahead of batters, but never put them away.
As the pitch count quickly climbed, reaching 90 in the 4th inning, Manoah began to labor. The righty's sinker velocity dipped down, pitch pace slowed, and he kicked at mound dirt between nearly every delivery. After the first two batters of the fourth reached base, Schneider came out to relieve his starter.
"He's going to continue to try to make strides," Schneider said. "It could have been a little bit different tonight, but tonight, it wasn't. It didn't go our way."
Mitch Bannon is a baseball reporter for Sports Illustrated covering the Toronto Blue Jays and their minor league affiliates.Twitter: @MitchBannon