Manoah Recalled From The Minors: Is He Back For Good?
Only two seasons into his career, Alek Manoah was already one of the best-starting pitchers in the MLB. During the 2022 season, Manoah had a career year pitching 196.2 innings with a 2.24 ERA and a 0.99 WHIP. When the 2023 season was set to start, fans were excited to see if Manoah could get even better. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.
Throughout the first 13 games that he started, Manoah was averaging a 6.36 ERA and a 1.90 WHIP which was a significant increase from his stats from the previous season. Manoah’s performance was proving to be a setback for the Blue Jays, with him only having a 1-7 record. On June 6th, it was announced that the Toronto Blue Jays were assigning Manoah to the Florida Complex league in hopes that he would be able to grow and rehab his skills.
The Florida Complex League is a rookie-level minor baseball league in Florida. Manoah was set to play his first game with the FCL Blue Jays on June 27th after multiple days of training. Manoah only had the chance to pitch 2.2 innings due to him already giving up 11 runs. With the Florida Complex League being the lowest-level league in the minors, it seemed like Manoah’s timeline to come back to the MLB was further than ever.
Even though he had an alarming start at the rookie level, the Blue Jays still decided to promote Alek Manoah to the Double-A. Manoah’s elite skills finally started to present themselves again during his first start with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. The 6’6 Pitcher struck out ten batters throughout five innings. This game helped Manoah regain some of his confidence which is a crucial part of being a pro athlete.
Finally, after almost one month in the minors, the Blue Jays recalled Manoah. Last season he was their ace, but this season Manoah was struggling more than he ever has. On Friday, July 7th, Alek Manoah was the starting pitcher against the Detroit Tigers, and as of right now, it looks like the ace might be coming back. Manoah pitched a full six innings, only allowing five hits and one earned run.
The former Cy Young winner struck out eight batters and walked none through 91 pitches which is a season-high. Before Manoah was sent down, he was having a hard time finding the strike zone with only a 45% zone rate, but now in his “comeback game,” he threw a pitch into the strike zone 56% of the time. This shows that his time down in the minors helped mold his pitching mechanics and overall helped him improve.
Not only did his month away from the MLB help him improve physically, but in an interview after the game on July 7th, Manoah showed that he has an improved mentality towards the game. “ You can do two things, you can lay down and stay down and let everybody be right, or you can continue to fight and continue to have purpose and continue to work hard and continue to trust the process,” Manoah said when asked what his position on being sent down was.
Manoah was a vital component in the Blue Jays’ 2022 season, and the Blue Jays will benefit so much if they can get him back in his prime form. After this last performance, it looks like Manoah has gotten out of the slump that he has been in almost all season. Is this performance an accurate representation of how he will pitch in the future, or did he just get lucky?