Terrific Start From Manoah, Jays Beat Red Sox

Red Sox 0 Blue Jays 1

We are fortunate to get to watch Alek Manoah every fifth day. He was terrific again today. 7 innings with just 3 hits allowed, 1 walk (and as Joe Siddal said, the walk shouldn’t have been a walk, pitch right on the bottom corner of the zone) and 7 strikeouts. His fourth starts in, and he has a 1.44 ERA and 4 wins. 25 innings, at that rate, if he got 32 starts, he would get to 200 innings. The box score says he had 2 ground-outs and 8 fly-outs, but not many hit to the wall (though Raimel Tapia made a very nice catch up against the fence in right in the sixth inning).

Unfortunately, offensively, we did almost nothing. There were just 6 hits and 3 walks (only 4 strikeouts) but lots of softly hit balls, medium flies, and soft ground-outs.

Our one run came with some help from the Red Sox defense. In the third, Lourdes Gurriel reached on a Christian Arroyo error at short. Nice of the Red Sox to sit Xander Bogaerts today. Tapia walked, and then Alejandro Kirk grounded a single into left field (listed at 106.2 MPH, so not a cheapy), scoring Lourdes.

Kirk was the only Jay to get two hits today, adding an infield single, off the pitcher, in the eighth inning.

The bullpen did the job again today:

• Adam Cimber had a 3 up 3 down eighth. His third hold of the season.
• Jordan Romano gave up a hard-hit single (and a line drive, hit hard Lourdes caught that in left). And he struck out Jackie Bradley Jr. to finish off the game. With JD Martinez on the bench, why would you let Bradley make the last out of the game? Romano gets his ninth save of April. That’s pretty amazing. If the season didn’t start a week late, I’d be checking to see if that’s the most saves for a Jays pitcher in April.

Jays of the Day: Manoah (.458 WPA), Romano (.160), and Cimber (.119). I’ll give an honourable mention to Kirk for driving in our lone run and catching the shutout. There has been a lot of complaining about Kirk’s defense, but he seems to be doing an excellent job behind the plate.

No Suckage Jays. Springer had the low mark at -.080 for his 0 for 3 with a walk day.

Tomorrow sees the start of a three-game series against the Astros (again). Jose Urquidy (1-1, 5.52) vs. Yusei Kikuchi (0-1, 3.75).

The Jays still haven’t lost two games in a row this season.