Manoah was in fine form — up until he crumbled
Alek Manoah’s return to the major leagues was many things, but uneventful was not one of them.
There were moments of dominance — he struck out five of the first 10 batters he faced in the Blue Jays’ 11-8 loss in Washington on Sunday — and moments when he completely lost the plate.
With help from the Nationals’ defence, which made two second-inning errors before a monster Vladimir Guerrero Jr. grand slam, Manoah was staked to a 6-1 lead. But by the time the big right-hander was done for the day he had given all those runs back and more.
Things began ominously as the first batter Manoah faced hit a routine ground ball to shortstop but reached base when Bo Bichette sailed his throw to first.
All eyes were on the former Cy Young finalist, making his first major-league start since Aug. 10, to see how he would handle losing an easy out.
The 26-year-old blew away C.J. Abrams, making one of the league’s hottest young hitters look silly on a two-strike slider. After a groundball single put runners on the corners with one out, Manoah struck out Nick Senzel, freezing the cleanup hitter with a 95-m.p.h. fastball at the top of the zone.
Then just like that, it was gone. Nine of Manoah’s next 10 pitches missed the zone, leading to a walk to Jesse Winker that loaded the bases and another free pass to Joey Meneses that forced in the game’s first run.
But Manoah didn’t fall apart. The shoulders didn’t slump, there wasn’t the “what’s going on” look of bewilderment that too often crossed his face last season when he struggled to a 5.87 ERA.
The 26-year-old struck out Keibert Ruiz to limit the damage to one unearned run, then worked a perfect second inning, getting a weak comebacker and two more strikeouts.
A one-out solo homer in the third by Luis Garcia Jr., who went 7-for-9 over the weekend series, didn’t seem like that big a deal, cutting the Jays’ lead to 6-2 at the time. Manoah bounced back to get Senzel on a ground ball and got two quick strikes on Winker before he lost the plate once more, throwing eight straight balls to put a couple of runners on.
He recovered again, throwing a first-pitch strike to Ruiz and popping him up on the next offering to end the inning.
It appeared, despite the minor lapses, that Manoah was in control. The stuff looked good, he was moving well down the mound and his demeanour appeared to be back to where it was when he was at his best back in 2021 and 2022.
But with a runner on first and one out in the fourth, the Washington lineup turned over and the hitters got to face Manoah a third time. It did not go well.
He walked Jacob Young, and a groundout by Abrams moved the runners to second and third with two out. Manoah had already thrown 80 pitches.
It happened fast: a line single up the middle by Garcia scored two runs. Senzel sent a slider the other way to put the tying run on base. Then a full-count slider to Winker caught much too much of the plate and was clubbed 393 feet to rightcentre for a three-run homer.
A five-run lead was gone and an outing that had been checking enough of the right boxes was a disaster.
“I feel like when I was attacking the zone I was pretty tough to hit,” Manoah told reporters in Washington. “Started to kind of nibble, be too perfect, got behind in some counts and they made me pay with some big swings.”
Manoah gave up seven runs, six earned, on six hits over four innings, walking four and striking out six. Only 52 of his 92 pitches were strikes, his ERA a ghastly 13.50.
But the ugliness of the afternoon wasn’t quite done.
The Jays came back to take the lead in the fifth when, after an Isiah Kiner-Falefa sacrifice fly tied things up, Abrams booted an Ernie Clement grounder, allowing Daulton Varsho to score. It was Washington’s third error of the game and eighth of the series. They had only committed 10 all season before the Jays series.
Garcia singled in the tying run off Genesis Cabrera in the sixth but the Jays had the chance to take the lead back the next inning when Clement tried to squeeze Danny Jansen home.
Clement popped up the bunt, which made Jansen hesitate, but he headed home anyway and was thrown out easily.
Washington went ahead for good on Eddie Rosario’s two-run homer off Erik Swanson in the seventh, the second tiebreaking, game-winning home run Swanson allowed over the weekend. In eight appearances since coming off the injured list, the right-hander has allowed 11 runs on 13 hits, four of them homers, in just six innings of work.
The reeling Jays get a day off Mon- day before opening a two-game set in Philadelphia.
The Phillies went into Sunday’s action with baseball’s best record at 23-11.