Off-Day Bantering: Manoah

Alek Manoah got his second actual game action in his ‘let's ship you to the minors and see if you can be fixed’ time.

He went 5 innings, allowed 1 run, 3 hits, 3 walks with 10 strikeouts and a hit batter. Reports are that he got better as the game went on.

From Mike Wilner’s Toronto Star story:

By the fifth inning, the old Manoah swagger was showing up on the mound. After getting Yorke to swing through a filthy slider, he blew the Sea Dogs second baseman away with a 95-m.p.h. fastball, his hardest pitch of the night. Then Manoah literally bounced off the mound on the way to the dugout, showing more joy in that minute than he had in his last couple of months in the big leagues.

There was a lot of questioning, especially on Twitter, of what the front office was thinking, moving Alek all the way to Double-A after he got shelled at the Instructional League. But the front office felt that putting him in a spot that felt more like a real game, with a crowd (very small as it was raining before and during the game), announcers, music and all, might make him feel more at home.

The question is, what comes next? There is a fifth starter spot open with the Jays on Saturday, but I can’t see them putting him in there unless they overwork the bullpen between now and then. I’d expect he’ll have at least two more minor-league starts, even if the next one goes well.

FanGraphs has us at a 57% chance of making the playoffs.

Games are getting shorter:

Bisons’ pitcher Wes Parsons is the International Player of the Week. He’s the first Bisons player to win the award this year.

He struck out 9 batters on Saturday in 6 innings, allowing 3 hits, no runs and no walks.

In 4 starts for the Bisons, he has a 4.42 ERA. In 18.1 innings, he’s allowed 6 walks with 25 strikeouts since moving up from Dunedin.

To show we aren’t always the ones that get robbed by the umpire: