Alek Manoah Shines in MLB Debut, Earns Win Over Yankees

Thursday afternoon marked the MLB debut for former West Virginia flamethrower Alek Manoah as he made his first career start against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

Pitching against the winningest franchise in Major League Baseball history in your first ever game can be a bit of a daunting task that can overwhelm a pitcher. However, that was not the case for Manoah. After a four-pitch walk to DJ LeMahieu to start off the game, Manoah settled in and registered back-to-back strikeouts against Rougned Odor and Aaron Judge.

First out in the big leagues for @BlueJays No. 5 prospect Alek Manoah is a strikeout! pic.twitter.com/n8oAhTPCZN
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) May 27, 2021

Alek Manoah just made Aaron Judge look like a little leaguer pic.twitter.com/jAuyXdertg
— TrueRGM (@TrueRGM) May 27, 2021

As you can see in the video above, Manoah completely owned Judge in his first at-bat by bringing him to his knees on strike two and then blowing a fastball right by him that Judge was super late on.

In the third inning, Manoah picked up his fourth and fifth punchouts of the game as he struck out Odor once again and then overpowered two-time batting champ DJ LeMahieu with a fastball.

As the game went on, Manoah found more consistency with his slider and had good control of his change up. In the sixth, he walked Odor, bringing the tying run up to the plate (Aaron Judge). Manoah left a slider hanging just a tad bit too high but fortunately for him, Judge got underneath it and popped it up to center. He then induced an inning-ending groundball from Gleyber Torres to get out of the inning and ended his debut.

The only two hits Manoah gave up were to Miguel Andujar but were both weakly hit balls that Andujar fisted out to the outfield. Manoah finished the day with seven strikeouts, two walks, and allowed just two hits in six innings of work.

Jordan Romano closed things out for the Jays in the 7th to give Manoah his first career win.

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