Game #45 Preview: Manoah vs Silseth

After a great game yesterday, the Blue Jays will look to take two in a row against the Angels as they continue their four game weekend series this evening. Gametime is once again slated for the late 9:38pm ET start.

Blue Jays’ Starter

Alek Manoah will go for the Blue Jays, making his ninth start of the year. He has been incredible so far in his sophomore year, coming into today with a 5-1 record and a 1.62 ERA. The weird thing about his numbers is that after striking out 127 over 111.2 innings last year, his strikeout rate is down by 2.5 per 9 innings, with just 43 in his 50 innings thus far. Instead of relying on the strikeouts this year, he’s dominating with elite contact management. If he is able to add his strikeouts back into the mix, he will be unbeatable.

Angels’ Starter

The Angels will go with rookie Chase Silseth, who will be making just the third start of his young career. Through 10.1 innings at the big league level, the 22 year old has allowed 3 runs on just 7 hits, but has walked 4 and given up 2 home runs. He’s a bit fortunate to have allowed just the 3 runs thus far, and his FIP reflects that, coming in at 5.17 compared to his 2.61 ERA.

The right handed Silseth is a fastball-splitter-slider guy, who will mix in the occasional sinker and curveball. The fastball reaches into the upper 90s, averaging 95.8 mph. Both his splitter and slider come in in the mid to low 80s, a pretty noticeable difference. Of his 10 strikeouts so far, 6 have come on the splitter while 3 were on the slider.

Blue Jays’ Lineup

With 6 more runs scored yesterday, the Jays’ offense has scored at least 5 runs in consecutive games for just the second time this year. The other instance was a three game streak where they lost 8-7 to the Astros, then opened up the Red Sox’ series with a pair of 6 run wins, a little over a month ago.

Cavan Biggio is back, but he struck out 3 times and walked in his return last night. Ohtani really wasn’t an ideal matchup for him if he still can’t catch up to a hard fastball, which he will likely face once again tonight.

Alejandro Kirk was on the bench last night, but will be behind the plate tonight catching Manoah. Since Jansen has returned, Kirk has been catching Manoah and Berríos, while Jansen has had Gausman, Ryu and Kikuchi. Kirk should be at DH whenever he’s not catching, but with Biggio back and Tapia still playing a lot, it isn’t happening as much as it should.

Angels’ Lineup

The Jays’ pitchers held Trout, Ohtani and Rendon hitless last night, limiting them to just an Ohtani walk. Unsurprisingly, they were held to just 3 runs. A pretty understandable path to success against some pretty great players.

Taylor Ward, who is off to an incredible start to his season, was on the bench for the 5th straight game yesterday. He did however make an 8th inning pinch hit appearance, but lined out against Adam Cimber. The reports are that his shoulder will keep him out of the outfield until at least tomorrow, but there’s likely concern beyond that too.

Outfielder Juan Lagaras was added to the roster yesterday, and was in the starting lineup for his season debut. He’s likely just there to give the Angels an extra outfielder until Ward is back to full strength.

Yesterday’s Heroes

Kyle Farmer went 4-4 with a pair of home runs, a pair of singles and a sac bunt, driving in 5 runs to take home the Monster Bat award. His Reds exploded for 20 runs, beating the Cubs 20-5.

Aaron Nola was dominant into the 9th inning yesterday, allowing 1 run on 5 hits over 8.1 innings to take home the Pitcher of the Day award. He struck out 10 and didn’t walk anybody, taking home the win in the Phillies’ 4-1 win over the Braves.

Scott Barlow earned the rare 2 inning save last night, and did it in incredible fashion. After the Royals took the 3-2 lead in the top of the 8th, Joel Payamps loaded the bases on 3 straight singles to open up the bottom half. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Barlow got a pair of strikeouts and a groundout to end the threat. The 9th inning saw a couple singles, but he managed to work his way through that and clinch the 3-2 win over the Twins. But for Barlow’s efforts, he gets the WPA King trophy, with an incredible .739 WPA.

Find the Link

Find the link between Chase Silseth and nobody else.

Stats retrieved from Fangraphs and Baseball Savant