What’s wrong with the Blue Jays’ Manoah?
One of the most pressing questions surrounding the Toronto Blue Jays these days is “What the heck happened to Alek Manoah?” It’s a quarter of the way through the season and nobody seems to have a clue.
Manoah’s velocity is down, his command is off and he’s running into issues just about every time he takes the mound. Last year, he was the guy who put an end to losing streaks. This season, he’s the one starting them and there appears no simple solution to what ails him.
The season-long struggles for Manoah continued Monday night as he was hit hard, early and often, in a 7-4 loss to the New York Yankees. The opening day starter served up a pair of home runs, walked a career-high seven batters and was charged with five runs across four innings as the Jays’ winning streak was snapped at three games.
“This game will punch you right in the mouth,” said Manoah, who allowed first-inning home runs to Aaron Judge and Willie Calhoun. “My job is to show up every day and give this team a chance. I do everything I can between starts, bullpens. I feel like everything is coming together, it’s just right now the game’s testing me. You find out who’s who when things aren’t going well.”
Manoah finished top three in voting for last year’s American League Cy Young award. He became the ace of the staff and was later named their Game 1 starter for the AL Wild Card Series on the heels of a dominant regular season that saw him go 16-7 with a 2.24 ERA across 31 starts.
The road through 2023 has proven much more treacherous. After getting beat around by a depleted Yankees lineup, Manoah’s 5.40 ERA is the third-highest among qualified starters in the AL and his 1.09 strikeout-to-walk ratio is the worst. Nobody has allowed more walks and hits per innings pitched (WHIP) than Manoah’s 1.80.
All this from a guy whose 1.01 WHIP entering the year was the second lowest all-time by an AL pitcher in his first two seasons, trailing only Walter Johnson’s 0.98 mark from 1907-08. The 0.99 WHIP he posted last season alone was the lowest franchise history, even better than the 1.03 Roger Clemens put up in his 1997 Cy Young-winning season.
So again, we ask, what the heck is going on? The answers, predictably, haven’t always been forthcoming.
“The thing that gives me such confidence about Alek is that he has the hardest part of performing at this level figured out, and it’s the competitive factor, never backing down from a challenge,” Jays general manager Ross Atkins said a few hours before Manoah went out and laid another egg. “He’s working hard, he’s accountable and trying to find ways to be more consistent. I think it really just comes down to, the walks are a little up for him and more consistently being on the plate, executing in the zone, and we’ll see better results.”
That’s one way to spin it. Here are a few more: Manoah is throwing 3.7 per cent fewer pitches in the strike zone compared to last year and he’s getting 3.6 per cent fewer swings on pitches outside the zone. His whiff percentage has dropped by 4.7 per cent and the percentage of “barrels” hit by opposing players has jumped by 3.9 per cent. Opponents’ exit velocity is up 1.6 miles per hour.
That’s a fancy way of saying Manoah’s is pitching fewer strikes and the ones he does throw are getting hit harder than ever. Further complicating matters, there doesn’t appear to be a singular cause behind his struggles. Instead, it’s a confluence of issues related to command, the quality of his stuff and potentially some secondary factors like a ban on the defensive shift and his catcher Alejandro Kirk’s regression as a pitch framer.
The main takeaway is that Manoah is getting himself into too many hitter’s counts and when he gets ahead, he’s struggled to put hitters away.
That’s led to a lot of damage by opposing hitters.
Nobody has allowed more walks and hits per innings pitched (WHIP) than Alek Manoah’s 1.80