Alek Manoah, Blue Jays fail to capture regular season magic in Game 1 of ALWC

Everything about Alek Manoah’s persona is designed for playoff baseball.

The Toronto Blue Jays right-hander brings a distinct level of competitiveness, swagger, and efficiency to his outings that few pitchers in baseball can match. In his sophomore year, the 24-year-old powered through a whopping 196.2 innings, defied any doubts about workload management, and thrust himself into the AL Cy Young conversation.

All visible elements pointed towards Manoah carrying his success into the postseason. On Friday, in the first game of the American League wild card series versus the Seattle Mariners, the Blue Jays ace stumbled for the first time in seven weeks.

In the very first at-bat of the 4-0 loss, the righty drilled Mariners lead-off man Julio Rodríguez on the hand, spoiling an 0-2 count. Two batters later, Eugenio Suárez ripped a double down the line to open the scoring. The next Seattle hitter, red-hot catcher Cal Raleigh, roasted a towering two-run bomb over the right-field wall, increasing the lead to three.

The Rogers Centre crowd was devastated – their ace had been so steady all season. What was going wrong? Manoah had allowed as many runs in four hitters as he had in his previous four starts combined.

“I don't know if [Manoah] was a little bit fired up,” said Jays manager John Schneider. “But [he] had some velo and just a couple of bad pitches, 0-2 to Julio and the 3-2 heater to Raleigh.”

Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker jogged out to the mound to help Manoah reset. Toronto’s infield gathered, too, and when the huddle broke, there was a renewed sense of energy. The Jays grabbed two quick outs and the crowd quickly shocked itself back to life, chanting madly when Manoah punched out a batter to end the first frame.

As expected, Toronto’s home faithful was an x-factor. Before the game began, the sold-out crowd of 47,402 was amped, bellowing streams of “let’s go, Blue Jays” chants. With the roof closed on a brisk October afternoon, the buzz from the stands rode the early highs and lows of this contest.

“It felt great,” Manoah said of the home field atmosphere. “First strike of the game there was great energy and felt like every out we had the whole country behind us. Energy was great. That's what we grind all year for, to have home field advantage.”

After Manoah danced his way through a stressful second inning, his body language on the mound started to change. The moxie returned, but even as the early playoff nerves withered away, he never looked like the guy who posted a 0.88 ERA in his last six starts.

“I just think you have to go out there and execute pitches,” said Manoah, still upset after the loss. “Obviously, I didn't do that today. There were a few that they really capitalized on.”

When Manoah exited the game after allowing four runs through 5.1 innings, the cameras caught him in the dugout tossing his glove and hat in frustration. As tough as the letdown sat with Manoah, the burden of the loss didn’t fall entirely on the starting pitcher. Run support was non-existent on Toronto’s end.

The Blue Jays offence scattered hits off Mariners starter Luis Castillo but never broke through. There were multiple innings where Toronto scraped together a couple of bleeding, two-out hits. In the end, though, the Jays finished with a big zero on the scoreboard.

It’s not like the Blue Jays’ offensive effort was egregious. The shutout had more to do with how Castillo kept the 99-mph sinker down in the zone. Jays hitters never got the ball elevated, grounding into seven outs.

“[Castillo] has a sinker pounding out your hands at 99 to 100,” said Whit Merrifield, who finished 1-for 3. “And then he has the four-seam that he'll throw up and away. It doesn't have that dive. It's got more of a true carry.

“You're having to make a decision on what that 100-mph pitch is going to do, and that's what makes it tough.”

All told, Game 1 was a harsh reminder of the razor-thin margins that exist in playoff baseball. Manoah’s final line was passable; the Jays had as many hits as the Mariners (seven), but, in the end, a handful of bad pitches in the first inning decided the game.

After a strong 92-win regular season established high expectations for this Blue Jays squad, Toronto now finds itself in a do-or-die situation. The optimism surrounding the club has quickly turned into desperation.

For the Blue Jays’ young core, the new challenge is about how they attack Game 2, in which Robbie Ray will dual Kevin Gausman. How will the club come out playing energetically, but not out of control? How do they fight to the final out without pressing and straying from their approach? It’s been a season-long quandary for the Jays, who’ve hit plenty of cold stretches this year and battled back from adversity.

Here in October, though, with the season on the line, pressure will be at an all-time high, whether players admit it or not. But that’s not an unusual position for Blue Jays teams in playoff scenarios. The 2015 Jays fell behind the Texas Rangers in two games before storming back for an epic Game 5 victory capped off by that memorable José Bautista three-run homer.

The 2022 Blue Jays have the talent and enough fan interest to join – maybe even surpass – that elusive upper-echelon of Toronto sports folklore. That quest will need to start Saturday.

“Guys are up for the challenge,” said Schneider. “And we've been saying it the whole year, the whole second half, that you're trying to win every series. You've got to win two in a row to win it. You expect them to come out with the same energy, the same mentality, the same focus.”

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