With all obvious toilet euphemisms aside, the return of Alek Manoah to the 6ix last night was anything but crappy.
In the preseason, Manoah was a few of our Razzball writers’ AL Cy Young choices, (present company included). His collapse through April and May was both unwelcome and unnerving. To reiterate our title here, it became second nature for a lot of fans to ‘take the p*ss’ with Manoah and mock his full-blown breakdown.
The Razzball mantra of ‘don’t draft a top starter’ was one that a lot of us followed, too. So, come draft season, many of us were looking in that Manoah tier for our SP1 after loading up on 4 rounds of elite hitters.
The pitching line until his early June demotion? 58 IP, a 6.36 ERA, with a 7.45 K/9 and 6.52 BB/9.
Barf emoji.
A 1-7 record with equal struggles against the pitch clock and self-doubt/self-confidence monster?
Green face holding in barf emoji.
But last night, Manoah looked like he at least had some things figured out. He threw 19 first pitch strikes to the 23 batters he faced and threw 64 strikes out of his total 91 pitches. The most telling stat on the night was the 0 BB.
?????? #NextLevel pic.twitter.com/TnBoA0ZpKI
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) July 8, 2023
Manoah located the 91-93 MPH fastball well for his 6 innings, and mixed in the 80 MPH offspeed to keep hitters off balance all night.
Yes, it was the Tigers, so I’m taking this with an SUV-sized grain of salt. But no matter who the opponent was, it’s definitely an encouraging sign that Manoah didn’t get shellacked for 11 ER over 2 2/3 IP like he did a couple of weeks ago in the Florida Instructional League. He even had a bit of that ‘swagger’ back that he showed a year ago at this time when he was headed to the All-Star game in L.A.
Baby steps.
Here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball…
George Springer – 2-for-5, 1 run, 3 RBIs and a slam (13), hitting .269. Springer’s dinger put the Blue Jays ahead in the 4th inning, and ended Alex Faedo’s night pretty early (3.2 IP, 7 ER, 8 baserunners, 2 BB, 2K).
Whit Merrifield – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs, and his 9th homer, and 3rd homer in 2 games. Of course, that’s “All-Star” Whit Merrifield…predicted no one in February.
A.J. Puk – 1 IP, 3 ER, 3K. Puk served up a three-run bomb to noted slugger Christian Pache (hashtag sarcasm) in the top of the ninth inning for the blown save. On the other side, Craig Kimbrel pitched a clean ninth, (1 hit), for his 14th save.
Sean Murphy – 1-for-4, 1 run, 2 RBIs, and his 14th homer. Another All-Star here, and all the offense the Braves would need with Charlie Morton (6 1/3 IP, 4 hits, 1 ER, 6 K, 2 BB) out dueling Tyler Glasnow (5 2/3 IP, 2 hits, 1 ER, 8 K, 1 BB). Glasnow struck out 4 batters in one inning for the second time in his career, but was removed early with left arm/leg cramps.
Adolis Garcia – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs, and his 23rd homer. Anyone ever heard of this guy? I think he might be an All-Star too. So much for me being concerned that I picked him too early in the 5th round of my TGFBI draft. As a side note, all Rangers starters (not named Leody Taveras) had at least one hit in this game.
Jameson Taillon – 8 IP, 1 hit, 0 ER, 4K, 2 BB. Jameson really tied one on last night in the Bronx as he shut out the Yankees. Cody Bellinger homered too (9).
Aaron Civale – 7 IP, 2 hits, 0 ER, 9 K, 0 BB. Does anyone else hear Dean Martin in their head when they see this guy’s name? No? Just me? Ciiiiivaaaaleeeee, oh oh oh oh!
Jarren Duran – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 1 RBI, triple (2). Duran is wicked hot right now. Hotter than a large black coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Hotter than a ticket to a Taylor Swift show. Hotter than…Ok, let’s just point out he’s got 10 hits in 17 PA in July.
Willy Adames – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBI, and his 14th home run. Adames has a hit in 7 of his last 8 games. Hotter than…wait, nevermind.
Jake Burger – 2-for-2, 2 runs, 3 RBIs, 2 BB, and his 19th home run. One would think that the Cardinals would cruise to an easy win with 16 hits against Burger’s White Sox. That one would be wrong.
Mike Ford – 3-for-3, 3 runs, 4 RBIs, and his 9th home run. Coincidentally, the Astros’ team ERA last night? Found On Road Dead.
Luis Castillo – 7 IP, 5 hits, 0 ER, 3 K, 0 BB. ‘The Rock’ didn’t strike out many last night, but he did get some good news about the All-Star game next week in Seattle. (I’m a sucker for these kind of videos).
Francisco Lindor – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs, and a slam (19), and double legs (12, 13). You mean he didn’t go 5-for-5 like he did Thursday night? What a bum.
Francisco Alvarez – 4-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI, hitting .241. Those power numbers are pretty great, (16 HR in 64 GP), but if he can string a few of these multi-hit games together he’ll jump even further up the catcher rankings. He’s currently the 9th catcher on our Player Rater (12 team mixed).
Manny Machado – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs, and his 13th home run, hitting .260. His homer was a bottom of the 10th blast, but the Padres still lost 6-4 so the home run was Machado about nothing.
Corbin Carroll – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 1 RBI, double legs (25, 26) and holy crap he actually played last night! I watched this game after the Blue Jays/Tigers game mostly because there was a collective panic at Razzball HQ when Carroll pulled his best impersonation of Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon the previous night. That shoulder…it did not look good. Well, Carroll certainly didn’t show any signs of slowing down in this one. They showed a clip from a Torey Lovullo interview where he spoke about Carroll having the opportunity to head back to his hometown and play as an All-Star next week in Seattle. “It’s all falling back into place for him” was the quote. And all I could think of was, ‘Hopefully you can say the same thing about his shoulder’. For what it’s Werth, Carroll did ‘tap’ said shoulder on a follow through in his last at-bat. It could be nothing, though.
Jake McCarthy – 0-for-2, 2 runs, 2BB, 2 steals (19, 20). As the SAGNOF steals guy, I felt obligated to mention McCarthy, especially since commenter John and I had a bit of a back and forth about adding McCarthy or Bader last week. Jake must have read it too, as he’s now stolen three bases in his last two games after not getting one since June 27th.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 4 RBIs, a slam (15th), and legs (2nd). It’s an All-Star theme here today, folks. I’m not sure what’s more impressive, LuGuJu’s bounceback season or his commitment to the Grimace challenge.
Mookie Betts – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 4 RBIs, and his 24th AND 25th home runs. Mookie best!
Will Smith – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs, and his 13th homer. It’s safe to say that Will Smith and the Dodgers were slapping the ball everywhere last night. JD Martinez (2-for-3, 1 run, 2 RBIs) hit his 21st home run, and Freddie Freeman (1-for-5, 2 runs, 1 RBI) hit his 16th.
Ezequiel Tovar – 1-for-4, 1 run, 3 RBIs, and a slam (9th). Tovar started slowly, but has a triple slash of .307/.328/.526 since June 1st. Not bad for a shortstop prospect who’s producing at the MLB level…at the age of 21!
That’s all, Razzfolks! Drop me any questions or comments below and come see me on Wednesdays for my SAGNOF steals article. You can always catch me here or @MarmosDad on Twitter, too.
Have a great All-Star break, everyone!
