Manoah Your Enemy

 

Yes, I know the Blue Jays are 12.5 games behind the Yankees. Yes, I know the Blue Jays' usual June come-up is a lot more muted than usual. Yes, I know the Yankees pitching is still among the best in the leagues. But none of that makes Alek Manoah any less terrifying to me. He's big, he's strong, he throws hard, and he's looked like a thorn in the side of my Yankees ever since he came up. I'm serious, he comes up last year and immediately starts pitching well, and I'm immediately going 'ohhhh no, not you too.'

I equate it to the late-coming guy who comes up and is ALSO good at everything. Somebody like Roberto Osuna, Yordan Alvarez or Jose Martinez, just pesky because he's an addition to everything else that's also already really good. And the fact that Manoah has fit right in with the rotation AND excelled on his second year is great news for the Blue Jays and terrible news for everyone else in the AL East.

I mean, so far Alek Manoah has an 8-2 record, a 2.00 ERA and 73 Ks. The opposing offenses have gotten to Yusei Kikuchi and Jose Berrios, and they're just starting to figure out Kevin Gausman, but the only team to really get the best of Manoah so far has been the Yankees, who got to him the last time they squared off during the Yanks' hot streak. And I think the Jays are banking on that, and on Manoah's ace-type status. Clearly without Ryu, or the better numbers of Kikuchi and Berrios, the Jays' rotation hasn't been exactly what they planned, but I think Manoah's outdone their expectations, and I don't think they banked on him being a full-fledged Cy Young candidate, which he certainly feels like right now. 

But the problem we really have is this- the first part of the season, the rotation was in great shape and the lineup was kinda dead. Now Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman, Alejandro Kirk, Santiago Espinal, Teoscar Hernandez, George Springer and Lourdes Gurriel, which is pretty much their entire lineup, are all hitting...and the rotation has slowed down exponentially. So the trick is getting everyone to be on the same page at the same time, a lot like the Yankees have been for most of the season and a lot like the Red Sox have been lately. I still see the Blue Jays being a playoff team, but in order to really stand out in this division, they'll need to help the rotation up and get these guys to really outsmart offenses again.

Until then, though...Alek Manoah alone is more than a lot of teams have.

Coming Tomorrow- Hard-hitting third baseman for a team that just woke up this month.