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bluerap23 wrote:Nate Pearson had a solid start for Buffalo. Would love to see his next start with jays.

Blue Jays No. 6 prospect Alek Manoah strikes out 12 in Triple-A debut as Bisons crush Worcester
By Kyle Franko kfranko@trentonian.com @kj_franko

TRENTON — Alek Manoah carries himself with the confidence of a major league pitcher.

If he turns in more outings like he did in his Triple-A debut, he'll be there sooner rather than later.

The Blue Jays' No. 6 prospect delivered an electric 12-strikeout performance over six innings of two-hit ball and the Bisons took the first three games of this extended six-game series from Worcester with a 10-1 victory on Thursday night in Trenton.

"You can't fight if you can't breath," Manoah said. "Just try and step on their neck early and keep them down. That's what I was able to do tonight."

Manoah had logged just 17 professional innings at Single-A short season after Toronto made him its first-round pick in 2019 out of West Virginia University, but he impressed during spring training to earn a spot in the Triple-A rotation.

Then he went out and lit up the radar gun.

The 23-year-old right-hander sat between 95-98 mph on his fastball — he features a good old fashioned four-seam heater and a two-seamer with sink — and worked in a wipe-out slider to put away flailing Woo Sox hitters.

"He is a large man and a large personality and he's got a very good arm," manager Casey Candaele said. "He's a competitor and he was so excited to be out there."

Manoah struck out the side in both the third and fourth innings. The 6-foot-6, 260-pounder even debuted a front-hip two-seam sinker to put away the left-hand hitting Josh Ockimey in the fifth for his 10th strikeout.


"It was something I've thrown really well at the alternate site, but just didn't think it was quite there yet, but I told (catcher Juan Graterol) before the game if you feel like a lefty is battling a few pitches, let's throw that front-hip sinker and try it out," said Manoah, who landed 50 of his 81 pitches in the strikezone, with his only blemishes three hit batters. "That guy had a pretty good (at-bat) and he was fouling off some heaters, some sliders and that was the perfect time for it."

Manoah credited the 32-year-old veteran Graterol for helping him through his first start.

"He's got a brain back there," Manoah said. "To be honest with you, not many people are wired the same way I'm wired, and he is. There weren't many times where I had to shake. I felt like we were on the same page, and every time I was thinking of a wacky idea what to throw, it was like he was thinking the same thing. That conviction is priceless, especially to have an experienced catcher calling the game."

While Manoah will grab the headlines, the Bisons' offense pounded out 17 hits to give them 36 through the first three games of the season.

Rowdy Tellez, Logan Warmoth and Christian Colon all homered. Tellez, who had 21 longballs for the Blue Jays two seasons ago, launched a two-run shot off the batter's eye in center in the third that had an exit velocity of 106 mph and traveled 421 feet.

Eight of the nine players in the lineup recorded a hit and seven of them had multiple hits. Cullen Large and Colon had three hits apiece.

"We got pretty good hitters all around and it is contagious," Candaele said. "What we're really doing well is battling with two strikes and grinding at-bats out. (Hitting coach) Corey Hart has kind of hammered that into their heads."

Even after Manoah gave way to relievers Connor Overton and Jeremy Beasley, Worcester still couldn't put the bat on the ball. The three Bisons pitchers combined to for 18 punch outs.

"These guys are a really fun clubhouse to be around and I think it is showing out there," Manoah said. "We're having fun in the dugout, guys are playing loose, guys are playing fun."

Lateral Quicks wrote:To my amateur eye, SWR's delivery needs some work. He's falling off pretty severely to the first base side.

Manoah looks encouraging to say the least. Fun to think about a possible Ryu/Pearson/Ray/Manoah/Matz rotation to end the year. A lot has to go right for that to happen, obviously.

Schad wrote:That appearance represented more than 25% of Manoah's career professional innings, heh.

Given his lack of pro experience, I'm guessing that we'll be fairly patient with him. He still needs to develop his changeup in order to be an effective mid-rotation-or-better starter in the majors, and we'll still need a fair number of innings to know whether the command is real. Absolute best-case, he's a July callup. Think the most likely scenario is that we bring him up Aug/Sept if we're in contention, possibly in a 3-4 IP role initially.

dagger wrote:Yes, but I hope the Jays aren't rigid if he's clearly ready. The innings thing, the level think - never pitched above A ball - don't impress me. The White Sox brought Garrett Crochet directly from the draft to their roster - admittedly during the 60-game summer of 2019 - and he's done alright. Now, he's being used in hold situations, has an ERA of 1.00 after nine innings with 3 holds. Crochet was the #11 overall pick in 2020. Manoah was the #11 pick in 2019. If Manoah sustains his AAA success over 6-8 weeks, and if his debut is to be in these hold situations, there would be no reason to draw this out to August/September, not if the team could actually use him productively. Every so often there are phenoms. He may be exactly what Keith Law says of him.

Schad wrote:

dagger wrote:Yes, but I hope the Jays aren't rigid if he's clearly ready. The innings thing, the level think - never pitched above A ball - don't impress me. The White Sox brought Garrett Crochet directly from the draft to their roster - admittedly during the 60-game summer of 2019 - and he's done alright. Now, he's being used in hold situations, has an ERA of 1.00 after nine innings with 3 holds. Crochet was the #11 overall pick in 2020. Manoah was the #11 pick in 2019. If Manoah sustains his AAA success over 6-8 weeks, and if his debut is to be in these hold situations, there would be no reason to draw this out to August/September, not if the team could actually use him productively. Every so often there are phenoms. He may be exactly what Keith Law says of him.

I think that's wildly overoptimistic, because "clearly ready" doesn't always actually mean "clearly ready". You mention him being ahead of Pearson...that's only true if one factors in what Pearson did at the major league level when he was "clearly ready", because he was utterly dominant in the minors prior.

And relievers are much different. You can call up a reliever pretty well straightaway if they have a couple very good pitches. The same doesn't hold for starters.

bluerap23 wrote:Would be pretty dope to have Pearson/Manoah/SWR up by the end of the year.

The_Hater wrote:I was just going to ask the minor league experts around here what the odds of SWR finishing the season with the Jays would be?

I was going to ask about Monoah too but those odds look extremely high even without a Change-up. His Fastball/Slider/Curve all look like plus pitches.

vaff87 wrote:The minors, of course, are about development, not results. So I guess it depends on how much he developed last year at the alternate training site. Only the Jays really know that answer, I think.

Adrian_05 wrote:Id give Manoah about a couple handfuls of starts at triple A. If he continues to look good, I'd bring him up. Theres no point wasting bullets in triple A.