Manoah Shines Again as Blue Jays Win 8th Straight

Manoah's latest gem gave Toronto its eighth straight win.

For the first time since Opening Day last season, the Blue Jays took the field in their white jerseys and white-paneled hats. 

The new look worked, too, as the Jays swept the three-game series at Rogers Centre with an 8-3 victory over Chicago, their eighth win in a row.

In the beginning, Blue Jays starter Manoah looked a bit out of whack—he allowed two singles and walked a batter to load the bases. But the big fella danced his way out of it, topping the act off with a full-count breaking ball in a perfect spot to strikeout—and frustrate—fiery Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal.

After that, Manoah breezed through the second inning. Then the third inning. The fourth. The fifth. Manoah sat down 16 straight Chicago hitters. When José Abreu broke through with a single to start the seventh, Manoah rolled a double play to crush any dreams of a White Sox rally.

There’s this air of confidence around Manoah that’s difficult to describe. He radiates calmness and intensity simultaneously, all while dominating on the biggest stages. Whatever “it” is, Manoah has it—and Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo recognized “it” the moment he met the 24-year-old kid.

“His mindset is off the charts … since the day I met him,” Montoyo told reporters before the game.

Manoah came within one out of closing the eighth inning but couldn’t seal it. With two outs, a tricky chopper and a shifted defense allowed Leury García to reach base and moved Reese McGuire to second. The next batter, Luis Robert, doubled to end Manoah’s night after 7.2 innings, three earned runs on six hits, five strikeouts, and one walk.

Manoah said he was thinking about getting his first complete game, which is partially why he grooved a pitch to Robert, so he could keep his pitch count down.

"Baseball is great, man. It teaches you lessons all the time," Manoah said. "And that's a good lesson for me to not worry about pitch count or look ahead in the game. Just kind of stay in myself, continue to attack, and what's meant to happen will happen."

Raimel Tapia started all the Blue Jays’ offense with some run-like-hell hustle in the third. His groundball down the line allowed him to slide safely into second—and when the throw into second skipped past second base, Tapia dashed into third base safely, wrapping up a chaotic play.

Tapia would eventually come in to score on a Santiago Espinal double play, as the Jays struggled to generate offense against the twisting, shimmying Johnny Cueto. The White Sox hurler paused his leg kick and quick-pitched out of the wind-up, which messed up Toronto’s timing. It wasn’t until Tapia got on base again in the fifth, this time by a fielder’s choice, that the Jays tacked on one more with an Espinal double.

Tapia made sure to let everyone know he scored by dropping into a couple push-ups after sliding into home.

The second Toronto run of the game seemed to start something. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. laced a double off the wall to begin the sixth, and then Teoscar Hernández, who’d been smashing balls all week, connected on a no-doubt bomb. The two-run shot was just Hernández’s third homer of the season and first at Rogers Centre since Opening Day, when he changed the course of a game with one swing.

"Everybody's starting to feel good," said Hernández, who finished 2-for-5. "I'm starting to feel good. My swing is getting back together, and we're having good at-bats. That's the biggest thing for us right now."

Once the game narrowed within a run, the Jays took it to the Southsiders’ bullpen, pounding in four insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth inning on a flurry of hits.

The tide is turning in Toronto. The Blue Jays are hitting, the pitching has remained solid, and, perhaps most importantly, the players are loose and having fun again—Guerrero’s putting display in the dugout assured us of that.

The Blue Jays are playing their best ball of the season, and the rest of the AL ought to take notice.