BOSTON – This was the full Alek Manoah experience, a tornado of energy and emotion tearing through Fenway Park on a steamy Saturday, triggering everything from alarm to rage over six gripping innings of work.
The gamut ran bailing on a pitch in the second inning and shaking out his right hand, to using indelicate language as he recommended that Franchy Cordero be seated after a strikeout in the sixth.
Unhappy that the all-star game sensation screamed in elation after getting Bobby Dalbec to end the frame and glanced at their bench, the Boston Red Sox voiced their displeasure, received more suggestions that they recline, and a few of their players began to emerge from the dugout to further the conversation.
Quickly, the Blue Jays funnelled their mountain-of-a-man off the field, order remained and they proceeded to lock down a 4-1 victory Saturday, their fifth in a row, improving them to 9-3 against the Red Sox this season.
What a ride.
“Just competitive baseball, man,” Manoah said of fiery sixth-inning exchange. “It’s hot baseball, those guys are trying to do everything they can to win. We're doing the same thing on our side. I was pretty fired up coming into the dugout and glad we were able to get the win.”
The day after establishing new franchise records with 28 runs and 29 hits, the Blue Jays needed Manoah and the bullpen to be every bit as stingy as they were. RBI singles from Santiago Espinal and George Springer along with an Alejandro Kirk sacrifice fly in the third erased the deficit created by Bobby Dalbec’s solo shot in the second, and it was all pitching from there.
Manoah, fresh off of striking out the side during an epic all-star inning in which he was mic’d up, was front and centre in that regard, with all the inherent drama.
There were surely palpitating hearts in the Blue Jays’ baseball operations offices during the second inning. Manoah wound up for a 2-0 pitch to Dalbec and as his right arm came over the top, something seemed to give, flopping the ball into the ground. Afterwards he circled the ball slowly before picking it up, his right arm dangling as he spread his fingers wide, prompting interim manager John Schneider and trainer Jose Ministral to charge out.
“The mound was a little gluey,” explained Manoah, who caught a spike and slipped. “I was just trying to regroup myself, get my breath back and just get back to pitching.”
After a brief conference, Manoah remained in the game. Four pitches later, Dalbec sent a slider over the Monster. Manoah battled his way through the next four frames, including the fateful sixth.
Cordero appeared to be the first Red Sox player to take exception, staring out at Manoah and muttering something after swinging through a slider for the second out of the inning. When Manoah noticed, he glared back and told the DH to, and we’ll paraphrase here, go sit the funk down.
Cordero smirked as he returned to the dugout and the ill-will turned up a notch when he caught Dalbec looking to end the frame and pounded his chest in celebration. Dalbec didn’t like that and said something, Manoah impolitely asked him to walk away, and a few Red Sox climbed out of their dugout as Cavan Biggio, alertly, guided the big man to the Blue Jays bench.
“I was just trying to get him in the dugout and try not to let nothing turn into something,” said Biggio, wisely aware that the benches cleared between the sides when they last met in Toronto after Nick Pivetta hit Alejandro Kirk. “Trying to keep momentum on our side and not give them any reason to get it on their side.”
Nothing more developed, but given the stakes for both clubs, and that the Red Sox lost for the 12th time in their past 15 outings, the tensions shouldn’t be surprising.
“We all know he's an emotional guy,” said Schneider, who put his arm around Manoah in the dugout afterwards and chatted with him. “That’s what makes him elite – the way he competes. What I told him was outstanding effort today, way to empty the tank and just make sure that your emotion doesn't get the best of you and doesn't show up your opponent. But I couldn't ask for much more out of him in that inning.”
Manoah’s fortitude, of course, is an increasingly integral part of the Blue Jays’ backbone, complementing the steady dominance he provides every fifth day.
As Yusei Kikuchi works to rejoin the staff – Schneider called the lefty’s five shutout innings during Friday’s rehab start at triple-A Buffalo “encouraging” – the combination of Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios and Manoah gives GM Ross Atkins a front three comparable to any in baseball, with Ross Stripling providing dependable reliance behind them.
That gives Atkins the option of loading up the bullpen rather than trying to add both relief and rotation help ahead of the Aug. 2 trade deadline, although there’s certainly a path to the Blue Jays doing both. There is one school of thought that believes two high-end relievers are preferable to a starter, although the final verdict will also have to factor in what the market bears, too.
The Blue Jays bullpen held Saturday, particularly in the eighth, when Adam Cimber walked one and hit another, leaving two men on and two out for closer Jordan Romano, who got Dalbec to fly out to centre to preserve a 3-1 lead. After a Teoscar Hernandez double tacked on a fourth run in the ninth, Romano closed out the bottom half, easy-peasy.
“With where he was in terms of rest and how we felt about those matchups,” Schneider said of asking Romano to get more than three outs for the second time this year, “it was the perfect time to do it.”
As it so often has this season, securing a third consecutive Blue Jays series win all started with Manoah.
“He brings a little bit of extra emotion,” Schneider says of how Manoah’s vibe rubs off on the rest of the club. “A little bit of extra, ‘Here we go, we're here,’ like he says. It’s easy to get up for a game when he’s on the mound, for sure.”
Added Biggio: “He's the ultimate competitor. Love having him out there.”
For a number of reasons beyond the obvious, opponents won’t feel the same way, another intriguing part of the same wild ride.
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