Blue Jays bats make up for Alek Manoah’s miscues in sub-par opening day start

ST. LOUIS — Alek Manoah’s ascent to become one of the elite young pitchers in Major League Baseball has largely avoided bumps in the road adversity.

In his most recent two starts, both on those big baseball stages the Blue Jays starter craves, however, there have been some uncharacteristic wobbles.

The latest came on a brilliant Thursday afternoon here at Busch Stadium amid the hoopla of opening day, a moment he craved.

Until perhaps he didn’t.

In the 52nd start of his major league career, Manoah allowed his most hits yet — nine to the relentless St. Louis Cardinals — exiting a game he wildly anticipated after just 3.1 innings, the second shortest outing of his career.

It wasn’t all ugliness, even if it felt like it at times.

Manoah’s fastball was firing in the 94 mph range — a notable and welcome uptick from Grapefruit League play. And as a big team-first guy, the boxscore came out with a favourable, if fortunate, bottom line.

“I don’t get disappointed when we win,” a refreshingly up Manoah said after his much-anticipated afternoon went awry. “A win’s a win.”

A cliche is a cliche as well, of course, but Manoah means it.

Having to wait 174 days since his previous start — a sub-par (his description) in the American League wild-card series loss to Seattle last October — Manoah was champing at the bit to get the season started with a big effort. His teammates applauded his work in spring training, a period where he meticulously worked at refining that worked so well in his breakthrough 2022 season that included a first career trip to the all-star game.

On Thursday, though, it was difficult from the outset to channel his best, even amid the energy from a sellout crowd of 47,649 soaking up one of the best sporting days of the year.

Banked with a 3-0 lead by his electric offence in the first inning, Manoah struggled as his pitch count climbed. He allowed homer runs to Canadian Tyler O’Neill in the third inning and Brendan Donovan in the fourth, essentially ending his day.

“Throw an 0-2 slider right down the middle, throw a good fastball hitter a fast ball right down the middle …,” Manoah said of his miscues. “I didn’t get beat on good pitches, I got beat on bad pitches and that’s an easy adjustment.”

In other words, Manoah will take his extreme competitiveness and work on being better in his next outing, likely in Kansas City next week.

“My mechanics felt really good,” Manoah said. “My legs were working. My arm was on time. That (game) was at a high level. It felt good to be out there competing.”

Manoah earned the opening day start based on his superb, Cy Young finalist 2022 season and forms a dynamic 1-2 at the front of the order with Kevin Gausman, who will get the ball here on Saturday.

It’s still glass half full time, so there’s no way was manager John Schneider going to go anywhere near criticism of his ace, whose career ascent isn’t yet complete. In fact, Schneider is confident some simple adjustments — dialling in his slider, specifically — will be easily rectified.

“The heater was good and it had a little more life than he’s used to,” Schneider said of Manoah, just the fifth Jays pitcher aged 25 or younger to make an opening day start. “It was just pitch selection in certain counts with certain hitters.”

As much as the Jays like Manoah’s competitive temperament for big draw assignments like this one, was it possible that he was too fired up for this one? Schneider didn’t dismiss it.

“He was probably a little amped up,” the manager said. “We score three in the first and it’s tough waiting around.”

Among Manoah’s strengths are his confidence in his own abilities — and a keenness to make adjustments — but also he has unwavering belief in his teammates. With that in mind he had an up-front seat to the madness, a sprawling game that the pitch clock couldn’t even rescue after taking three hours and 38 minutes to complete.

“That was amazing,” said an upbeat Manoah after his team bailed out the first opening day start of his career. “Our offence went out and had an amazing day and continued to battle.

“That’s the definition of this team. We’re not going to give up no matter what.”

You can probably say the same about Manoah, who given his past performance lines, will come back with as much fire and likely better form in start No. 2.

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