Blue Jays takeaways: Erratic Alek Manoah lets Rays off the hook. Teoscar Hernandez caught napping

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This article was published 09/07/2021 (1594 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 7-1 loss to the Rays on Friday night:

It wasn’t the shortest outing of Alek Manoah’s major-league career, but it was close. The rookie righty left with two out in the fourth inning, having just hit Ji-Man Choi with a pitch with the bases loaded to force in a run that put the Rays up 3-1.

Despite only recording 11 outs, Manoah wasn’t especially bad at Tropicana Field, and it reflected his team’s faith in him that he was even allowed to face Choi, although he didn’t go any further.

The 23-year-old started the game like a house afire, retiring six of the first seven batters he faced, striking out five. He ran into trouble in the third inning with runners at second and third, nobody out and the top of the lineup coming up, but another pair of strikeouts almost got him out of it. A soft two-out single scored a pair, though, giving the Rays the lead for good.

He was an out away from escaping that jam in the fourth as well, but had thrown 84 pitches when Choi came to the plate after a walk to Brandon Lowe. Ordinarily, that’s when you would see a young pitcher get the hook. But the Jays know that Manoah is going to be something. He’s got a chance to pitch at the top of the rotation for a while, so he was given the opportunity to get the third out and put up a zero in what was a difficult, long inning.

It didn’t work out, but it was a show of confidence in the rookie that is likely to pay off over time.

• If you’re not hitting … Reese McGuire is regressing to the mean pretty hard right now. The Jays catcher, who had a 16-for-30 run in late June that brought his batting average from .204 to .321, went 0-for-2 Friday night, making him hitless in his last 13 at-bats and just two for his last 22.

When you’re not hitting you have to find other ways to contribute, but McGuire had a rough time behind the plate as well. The usually reliable catcher cost Manoah at least two big strikes with poor receiving. He dropped what would have been strike three to Joey Wendle, the pitch knocking the glove right off McGuire’s hand, and he took an 0-and-1 pitch to Choi right out of the strike zone in the fourth.

With Alejandro Kirk on his way back, McGuire has to clean up the defensive side, the strength of his game — especially if he’s no longer hitting.

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• Wakey, wakey: The pesky Rays stole a couple of big runs in the bottom of the sixth inning when Mike Zunino caught Teoscar Hernandez napping.

With runners on first and second and nobody out, Lowe hit a routine fly ball to left. Hernandez made the catch, but then took his time getting it back toward the infield, not thinking there was a danger that the runners would be tagging up. Zunino, after all, is the slowest runner on either team.

But the Rays catcher was paying attention. Seeing that the fly ball was going to be caught, Zunino went back to the bag and tagged up. Watching Hernandez catch the ball, look downward and take three steps backward, he took off and was able to beat Teoscar’s surprised, rushed throw very easily. The trailing runner, Brett Phillips, tagged and went to second. They both scored when Choi followed with a soft line single to centre — a hit that doubled the Rays’ lead to 5-1, but would merely have loaded the bases had the runners not moved up on the fly ball.

Hernandez is going to the all-star game next week, and his defensive play has improved this season, but neither he nor anyone else can take a play off and not expect to pay for it — especially, in the Blue Jays’ case, against Tampa Bay.

Tune into Mike Wilner’s weekly Blue Jays podcast, Deep Left Field, wherever you get your podcasts.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and host of the baseball podcast “Deep Left Field.” Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness