Manoah shines as the Jays win another series in a 1-0 nail-biter against the Red Sox
On Manoah's brilliant start, confounding Kirk the glove-first catcher, Alex Cora, Vlad, Chapman, Dexter Fowler, Yosver Zulueta, where to find Blue Jays Happy Hour going forward, and more!
The Blue Jays are not a team built to win 1-0 games. Except… what this book presupposes is… maybe they are? Particularly when a certain starter is on the hill.
The Blue Jays are now a remarkable 20-4 when Alek Manoah takes the hill. So let’s talk about it!
Here’s three up!
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Up: Alek Manoah
Up is an apt word to begin a segment on Manoah with, because he’s been on a straight upward trajectory as a pitcher since the start of spring training more than a year ago — maybe earlier. From the brilliant spring performances against the Yankees, to the three incredible Triple-A outings for Buffalo/Trenton, to an outstanding rookie year, to now an unbelievable four-start run to begin his second big league season, Manoah has been nothing short of a revelation for the Blue Jays.
He's allowed just four earned runs in 25 innings of work so far in 2022 (1.44 ERA), striking out a batter per inning, while producing a WHIP of just 0.88.
Thursday's start was another masterclass, with Manoah throwing seven shutout innings, allowing just three hits and one walk, striking out seven. And while pitch overlays tend to use camera angles that distort pitch movement, which is always something to keep in mind when looking at these, uh… wow.
Let’s maybe hold the Cy Young talk just yet — Kevin Gausman would like a word, for one, and for two, plenty of pitchers are having a whole lot of success so far this year — but we can still marvel at what Manoah is doing, with now just 24 big league starts under his belt.
That’s pretty good right there! Especially when you consider that he hasn’t really hit his stride in terms of generating strikeouts just yet. Last year he averaged 10.24 strikeouts per nine innings, while this year so far his K/9 is at just 9.0.
And what’s maybe best of all about the Manoah experience is that, like so many on this extremely fun Blue Jays team, he really does genuinely seem to love what he’s doing. For example, check out this exchange with David Laurila of FanGraphs in a great piece from this week that had Manoah talking about the development of his sinker and slider (the former of which he credits to watching Pitching Ninja videos online!).
Laurila: One last thing: is pitching fun?
Manoah: “It’s f-ing amazing. Do you enjoy watching?”
Laurila: Absolutely. I love watching. And while I haven’t pitched since high school, I’ll actually daydream about being out there on the mound.
Manoah: “I love watching it, too. And I love doing it. There is nothing like standing out there in front of 50,000 and throwing a ‘shutty.’ Pitching is fun.”
When Manoah is on the hill, it absolutely is. Especially when his stuff is filthy enough to produce moments like this!
Up: Alejando Kirk
Alejandro Kirk is having a bit of a confounding season at the plate in 2022 so far. Absolutely elite in avoiding swing-and-miss and strikeouts overall, excellent at working walks, yet oddly has not been striking the ball well. His average exit velocity currently sits at 86.9 mph, which is well down from the 92.3 mark he produced last year. His expected weighted on base on contact (xwOBACON) is a shockingly poor .268.
For context, Bo Bichette, who's 57 wRC+ is well below Kirk's 89 mark, has an xwOBACON of .433. Even Cavan Biggio, who has just one hit on 13 batted balls this season, tops Kirk, coming in with a mark of .307.
What gives? I have no idea, but Joshua Howsam has been following Kirk's struggles all season and has a pretty sound theory, I think. Not to mention the right conclusion. (Hopefully!).
The spray chart Kirk has generated so far this season — a remarkable one for a right-handed hitter — certainly seems to align with his observations.
Kirk has barely been getting ahold of anything this season, even pitches he should be driving. For example, Kirk has seen 30 fastballs (including sinkers, cutters, and two-seamers) in the heart of the zone so far this year (excluding ones on 3-0 counts) and has produced just a .246 xwOBA on those.
On Thursday night he didn't exactly reverse all those trends, but he did at least hit a 106.2 mph RBI single in the bottom of the third, reaching down and smacking a slider below the bottom of the zone from Garrett Whitlock — a nice piece of hitting, even if once again he was swinging at a pitcher's pitch.
It would be the only run the Jays needed.
Just as important, Kirk also helped his team when he didn’t have a bat in his hand. Statcast now ranks him in the 96th percentile (!!!) in terms of pitch framing this season. And though Statcast’s fielding metrics show that he’s still better at receiving to his glove side than when he has to reach — much like we can see in the chart below — he did a nice job on Thursday of ensuring his pitchers weren’t being victimized on borderline calls, while stealing the odd strike to boot.
One of those calls, in particular, stands out.
My Blue Jays Happy Hour cohost, Nick Ashbourne, has an even deeper dive into Kirk’s impressive defensive improvements up today at Sportsnet. It’s been quite something!
Up: Alex Cora
For what I hope are very obvious reasons, we can be pretty hard on the Red Sox around here. But I must say kudos to Sox manager Alex Cora, who chose not to go the Kevin Kiermaier route on Thursday night, when Alejandro Kirk dropped his PitchCom receiver between the eighth and ninth innings.
Instead of taking the device like some scuzzy Rays outfielder, Cora walked the it over to the Jays’ bench and gave it back.
“That was pretty classy to bring it to me,” Jays manager Charlie Montoyo told reporters (including Shi Davidi of Sportsnet) after the game. “They could have kept it easily and heard every pitch that Romano was going to throw. That was pretty awesome that he did that.”
I gotta tip my hat.
Also this!!!
Other notes
• It is simply impossible to not love Vladdy. (Fingers crossed he’s back in the lineup here on Friday!)
• Matt Chapman’s wRC+ is down to just 98 now, as his strikeout rate has risen to 29.1%. Though he’s far from the only struggling Blue Jays hitter right now, Thursday night against the Red Sox was, uh, pretty ugly.
Chapman proved last year that he can still be an incredibly valuable player if he’s merely a league average hitter, but I can’t imagine the Jays will be satisfied with that. He’s got some work to do on his pitch recognition, and could very much use having a few less non-competitive at-bats!
• Dexter Fowler made his debut on Thursday night for the Buffalo Bisons, serving as the designated hitter and leading off. The former All-Star and 2016 World Series champ looked pretty good, going 3-for-4 with three RBIs, a run scored, and a sac fly. I'll believe he can help the Jays at the big league level when I see it, but colour me intrigued!
• Speaking of intriguing, hard-throwing prospect Yosver Zulueta turned some heads with his outing for Dunedin on Thursday, pitching four shutout innings while allowing just one hit, one walk, and striking out seven. Per Statcast he threw six different pitches — in order of usage: sinker, curveball, slider, changeup, four-seamer, cutter. The curve was especially impressive, as he managed to generate three whiffs on five swings with it, while getting called strikes on a further seven of them. But don't sleep on the fastball either, as he averaged 96.5 mph on the pitch, maxing out at 98.6. That's big league calibre stuff right there!
Commenting on Zulueta’s night via Twitter, Jarrett Seidler of Baseball Prospectus explains: "Wrote just three days ago about pitchers with two similar but distinct breaking balls—the Statcast on Zulueta shows this and they've got some other good characteristics too. And also he throws mid-high 90s. He might move very quickly."
• Lastly, Nick and I had a great time hosting Thursday’s live, post-game edition of Blue Jays Happy Hour. You can listen to the show, and participate in the ones to follow (including Sunday, at the conclusion of the Jays-Astros game!), by heading to Callin.com, signing up, and following Blue Jays Happy Hour.
For those of you who won’t always be able to listen live, you’ll always be able to get the show via the Callin app. But we also now have feeds available in Apple Podcasts and on Spotify for you as well!
Next up:
Friday, 7:07 PM ET: Jays vs. Astros (Yusei Kikuchi vs. José Urquidy), TV: Sportsnet, Radio: Sportsnet 590
Saturday, 3:07 PM ET: Jays vs. Astros (José Berríos vs. Luis Garcia), TV: Sportsnet, Radio: Sportsnet 590
Sunday, 1:37 PM ET: Jays vs. Astros (Kevin Gausman vs. Framber Valdez), TV: Sportsnet, Radio: Sportsnet 590
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Manoah/Gausman/Berrios are a fantastic trio. Ryu and Kikuchi not so much. Stripling is a fine 5th starter or whatever he is at the moment, but if we want to get into the playoffs and go deep, we need another starter.