Manoah starts nightcap after bout with stomach bug

TORONTO — Alek Manoah’s absence was as stomach-churning for the Blue Jays as it was for himself.

The big right-hander’s start had to be moved from Game 1 of Tuesday’s doubleheader to the nightcap while he recovered from a stomach bug and watched from afar as his team fell, 4-2, to the Rays at Rogers Centre.

The loss put the Blue Jays a half-game behind the Rays in the AL Wild Card standings, adding another layer to what promises to be a seesaw affair until the series wraps on Thursday. But having Manoah back for Game 2 helped Toronto turn a quick corner.

“He’s doing fine,” Blue Jays interim manager John Schneider announced after the twin-bill opener. “We expect kind of a normal outing for him. He’s feeling a lot better, so we’ll ride it out like we always do.”

This was always going to be a game of chess.

With 18 innings to be played in 12 hours, the Blue Jays activated right-hander Mitch White, who was originally expected to start Game 2 as the 29th man six days after being optioned to Triple-A Buffalo amid a rough stretch. Instead, Schneider called on Julian Merryweather as an opener and brought in White in the second inning, hoping to give Manoah enough time to feel better for a potential Game 2 start.

White was caught by surprise, but he adjusted quickly to the change of plans.

“It wasn’t that big a deal, it was just that initial shock,” said White. “Once I got to the field, I still had time to do everything. Maybe a little abridged, but it was fine.”

Manoah wasn’t at Rogers Centre for the first game, but the team was in constant communication with him. By the time Bo Bichette grounded out after 11 pitches to strand runners on first and second and end the game, Manoah felt well enough to join in on the back-and-forth duel between AL East rivals.

Meanwhile, White’s value came in the form of six innings pitched, which gave the Blue Jays some flexibility ahead of Game 2 and its uncertainties. The right-hander took over for Merryweather in the second frame with his team trailing, 1-0, and allowed three more runs in the third. Then, he settled in and shut the door through the seventh, giving way to two clean innings from David Phelps.

There were visible improvements in White’s performance after three consecutive bad starts — the last of which came against the Orioles, an outing in which White didn’t make it past the third inning.

“I’ve been talking to Pete [Walker, Blue Jays pitching coach] a lot, and with [fellow starter Kevin Gausman],” said White on the adjustments he made after being optioned. “And what he’s been saying is: ‘Eighty percent. Just go nice and easy.’”

White wasn’t necessarily helped by his defense, either.

The defining moment came when the Rays’ Manuel Margot hit a soft single with Randy Arozarena at first base. As speedy as they come, Arozarena bolted from first to third as Teoscar Hernández fielded the ball in left field. The lead runner slowed down, then took off for home, and Hernández’s throw missed catcher Danny Jansen by a wide margin.

Still, White remained focused and didn’t allow much else after that.

“He kept his composure,” said Schneider. “He settled in and probably deserved a little bit better. We gave him some extra outs, which you cannot do against a team like that.”

Toronto’s hitters couldn’t muster much off Rays starter Jeffrey Springs and didn’t get on the board until the eighth inning, when a sequence of balls in play gave the team a pair of runs. Raimel Tapia singled to get aboard in the bottom of the ninth and George Springer reached on catcher’s interference, setting the stage for Bichette to play hero yet again as he stepped to the plate with two outs.

But hard-throwing reliever Pete Fairbanks got the better of that matchup, launching a sequence of fastballs from 98 mph to 100 mph, with just one slider mixed in, before getting the Blue Jays’ red-hot shortstop to softly ground out.

Undone by the Rays’ left-handed pitchers, the Blue Jays didn’t have any extra-base hits through the first nine innings of the day.

“I thought we could have adjusted a tick earlier to the changeup,” said Schneider of the pitching matchups in Game 1. “It’s definitely a very deliberate adjustment we need to make before facing guys like [Springs].”