The magic of the Blue Jays’ Alek Manoah is missing against the Marlins, but not the marvel

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This article was published 02/06/2021 (1626 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BUFFALO—What comes after dazzle?

Frazzle. Or frazzled, if you want to get all grammatical about it.

Which might or might not describe Alek Manoah. But decidedly not, apparently, rattled. Just a bit embattled. (We’ll stop now.)

In any event, after an adventurous second big-league start, the 23-year-old still slapped a smile on his face. Of course, there was plenty to smile about after the Blue Jays battled back to score three runs in the bottom of the ninth against Miami on Wednesday, a 6-5 walk-off courtesy of Joe Panik’s sacrifice fly. That came after singles by Reese McGuire and Marcus Semien to start the inning, a Bo Bichette triple and intentional walks to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez.

So it all ended sunnyside up for Manoah, in the dugout celebrating with the gang, his crooked second career start largely forgotten. In the moment at least.

“It was an unbelievable experience,” he said of the ninth-frame drama, in the gentle rain at Sahlen Field. “Big time hit by Bo. That’s just what he does. And then leave it in the hands of World Series champ Joe, you kind of feel comfortable in the dugout when he’s at the plate.”

It was probably a good thing, though, that the TV cameras, as a kindness, stopped panning over so often to Manoah’s mom, Susana, who was in the stands to witness her big boy’s second start. She was so visibly over the moon — along with everybody else — during Manoah’s debut at Yankee Stadium last week. Game 1 was Win 1.

But the thrill-fest this narrative had been, connect-the-dots impressionism, went kind of pear-shaped Wednesday against the Marlins.

Just as an aside here, we would point out that in their game notes the other day, the Marlins’ PR staff referred to the upcoming Toronto starter as Zach Manoah. This is a kid who grew up in the outskirts of Miami, for criminy sake.

Anyway, Manoah got a taste of baseball fickle, not long after skipping out to the mound and actually making that look quite graceful despite his six-foot-six, 260-pound frame.

Cut to the quick. As in quick exit.

One thousand, one hundred and seventy-five feet of dingers will do that. The Marlins went yard on Manoah thrice across the second and third innings — one more home run than the 23-year-old surrendered in his entire minor-league career. Which, of course, amounted to merely 35 innings on the bump, from low-A in Vancouver to a short stint with the Triple-A Bisons, before he was quickstepped to The Show, partly out of the Jays’ need but also because Manoah was clearly too good for even the high minors.

And ooh-la-la, what a terrific first impression the raw rookie made, striking out seven Yankees the first time he stepped into an enemy major-league park.

Nothing will ever take that away. But the memories would be rather less pleasant from his next go-around.

While he looked just fine in a three-up, three-down first inning, Manoah had a rude awakening from Corey Dickerson in the second frame, an elevated slider over the plate that the Marlin got out in front of, tattooed deep to centre field. Randal Grichuk got that one back for the Jays, leading off the third.

But the deeper Manoah progressed in the game, the more he seemed to be fighting his release and his command.

The fourth inning was a wayward mess for the big righty, frankly. Jose Devers led off with a single that came straight back to the mound, hitting Manoah in the knee, it looked like. And still he tried valiantly to field the ball as it caromed towards first base, attempting the scoop-and-toss but whiffing.

Jays manager Charlie Montoyo, his concern understandable, moseyed out to the mound to check on his prized asset, who claimed to be fine, just fine, and was given a couple of pitches to test himself. Manoah certainly appeared settled down but the next better, Jazz Chisholm Jr., liked the look of a changeup, belting it over the left-field fence, a two-run shot. One batter later, Jesus Aguilar made it a threesome of jacks, with his seventh of the season.

There appeared to be no twitchiness from the skipper, no haste to give Manoah an early hook. But in the fourth inning, after striking out Adam Duvall, Manoah walked Isan Diaz, hit Jorge Alfaro, and walked Jose Devers (after Devers had been on his hands and knees, recovering from a pitch in the dirt that had bounced and struck him in the crown jewels), which loaded the bases with one out.

That brought call to the bullpen for Joel Payamps, who prevented Miami from doing any further damage by punching out Chisholm, while Bichette made a nifty play on a bouncing ball to throw out Starling Marte. And Grichuk came through again, with another home run to lead off the fourth, keeping Toronto within striking distance.

Manoah did not look deflated as he trotted to the dugout, having gone 3 1/3 innings, allowing four runs, four hits and three walks while striking out five on 74 pitches. Perhaps most indicative of his personality and his baseball nous from all that the young man had to say in the Zoom interview crush before, around and after his MLB inauguration, was this: “I give everything I’ve got and my teammates know that. If I suck out there, they know that I’ve sucked at 100 per cent.”

So, yeah, that sucked. But he’s still the fireballer with the four-pitch repertoire, even if Game 2 threw him a curve — which, by the way, is the only pitch Manoah didn’t throw Wednesday. And the changeup killed him.

“Even when I have a good outing, it’s still a learning experience,” he said. “I’m extremely young, I’ve got a lot of baseball to play, a lot of baseball to learn. They put some balls in the air today and they went over the fence and that’s baseball, man. Thank the Lord we have an outstanding offence and you’re just never out of the game with them.

“It was huge that (Miami) didn’t blow it as open as I thought they would and they gave us a chance to attack.”

He lost no lustre with his teammates, who had been savouring Manoah’s razzmatazz Game 1 vicariously.

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“It felt great to see,” Guerrero said of the first start. “When you see one of your teammates making their debut, it feels like it was me. I remembered my debut. So I feel very happy for him. We’re very happy to have him here.”

Lourdes Gurriel Jr. stressed that the Yankee Stadium start didn’t come as a huge surprise, given how Manoah had been turning heads. “I would say since the beginning of spring training. And the energy that he brings to the team is unbelievable. We really needed it.”

From his vantage point in left field, what had Gurriel seen of Manoah? “His command, his location, you could tell he was in control of the situation.”

Yeah, well, that was seven days ago, which can be a lifetime in baseball. Some of the magic wore off on a dank, humid and finally wet night in Buffalo. But still, not much of the marvel, around Alek (Zach) Manoah.

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno