Manoah’s gem sets tone for Blue Jay’s crucial stretch

PITTSBURGH — It’s time for the Blue Jays to make hay while the sun shines, and the days are only getting shorter. 

Few pitchers in baseball understand an assignment better than Alek Manoah. Ask Manoah for six innings, he’ll give you seven. Ask him to be reliable, he’ll nearly bore you with his consistency. Say “jump,” he just might dunk on you. 

With Manoah on the mound, the Blue Jays’ 4-0 win at PNC Park in Pittsburgh on Friday night didn’t feel nearly as close. Toronto’s bats are still searching for consistency, coming off a confusing stretch of baseball with brilliant highs and troubling lows, but with the stakes rising by the day, they’ll take a dominant performance that drags them to one more win. Especially given the two weeks they’re staring at.

“We trust him, and he is a tremendous competitor,” said manager John Schneider. “I know I’ve said it before, but the work he does in between [starts] to allow himself to go there and do things like he did tonight is a credit to him. For a guy who’s in his first full season, he just continues to get better, which is awesome.”

Including Friday’s win, the Blue Jays are beginning a stretch of 18 games in 17 days. There’s an oasis in the desert coming Thursday, with the lone off-day during that stretch, but the Blue Jays have two doubleheaders approaching, one against the Orioles on Monday and another vs. the Rays on Sept. 13.

Of course, it helps to face the Pirates at this time of year. They fell to 49-82, miles from competitive as another summer winds down at one of baseball’s great ballparks. The Blue Jays have put up a 30-41 record against teams over .500 — which doesn’t bode well for the postseason — but they’ve beaten up on the teams they’re supposed to. Friday’s win moved the Blue Jays to 41-18 against clubs under .500

It shouldn’t matter if they’re playing the AL All-Stars or a Single-A team, though. A win is a win, and attention to detail is paramount.

“That was the message today,” Schneider said. “When you look at the last couple of teams we played, and Chicago for sure, you saw how they ran the bases and how they played. This team is no different. At the end of the day, it’s still Major League Baseball. You have to perform and you have to compete. You can’t expect to show up and say, ‘We have a better record than this team, so we’re going to win.’”

These winnable games against lesser opponents can’t slip through the cracks, though. The Blue Jays still have 10 games remaining against the Orioles, who have shocked the league this season and just keep promoting young cornerstones to their MLB roster. There’s nine games left against the Rays, too, who have never been kind to the Blue Jays. Those 19 games will make or break this season, but Toronto can’t miss the tap-in putts in between.

Manoah’s 7 1/3 innings of scoreless ball on 98 pitches dragged his ERA down to 2.48, a remarkable number for one of baseball’s emerging workhorses. Frankly, there aren’t many workhorses emerging these days as the 200-innings starter becomes rarer by the season, but Manoah is setting himself up for a run with 163 already. He’d be the first Blue Jays starter since Marcus Stroman (201 innings in 2017) to hit the mark.

“Being able to go out there and set the tone for the weekend, I give the bullpen a nice rest and let some of those guys catch up on some recovery,” Manoah said, “and let them eat some innings the rest of the weekend. It’s definitely something I look forward to doing more down the stretch.”

That backdrop is what makes this matter, though. With those doubleheaders nearing, the Blue Jays will be forced to lean on their rotation depth, which remains a weakness in the organization. Trevor Richards will be the opener Saturday, with Casey Lawrence and Yusei Kikuchi the bulk options on the roster currently. 

“Everyone talks about the dog days of August,” Manoah said. “It’s a long year. Everyone kind of feels it. The moment September comes, though, it’s like, ‘Here we go.’ The calendar’s switched over to September. Now, it’s go time. I get to set that tone.”

If the entire Blue Jays’ roster followed Manoah’s lead all season long, we wouldn’t be talking about a tight race for the final AL Wild Card spot. But there’s no time like the present. Manoah isn’t the only one at the front of this charge. He’s just the biggest, loudest, most reliable horse to follow.