ALEK MANOAH UNPLUGGED: The Blue Jays pitcher opens up about his challenges and expresses optimism for the future.
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The two team busses have left the parking lot in preparation for their road trip to Tampa to play the New York Yankees. Bo Bichette, Vlad Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio, Justin Turner, and Santiago Espinal are performing defensive drills on Field 1, where coaches are passing baseballs to them.
Alek Manoah is gearing up for an intense bullpen session on Field 2, a raucous routine that will culminate in his last training before making his Grapefruit League debut on Tuesday against the Tigers in Lakeland. Now that the scars from 2023 have mostly healed, Manoah is ready to go back to attacking, as seen by his impressive workout in which he outperformed experienced catcher Danny Jansen.
Manoah is motivated to become a force again in the Jays rotation. He not only has a strong physical appearance, but he is also mentally embracing the optimism that propelled him to become the Toronto staff’s ace going into the previous season.
Yet the season was everything from humble for the Floridian, with Manoah experiencing both humiliation and embarrassing experiences, including being blown away by his opening day assignment in 2023 and two demotions. But as Manoah is ready to rejoin the Jays rotation and establish himself as a potent pitcher once more in the American League, the tank appears to be full once more.
Manoah openly discussed some of the facts of an emotionally and physically taxing campaign that was followed by a restorative off-season in which he got married, changed his physical appearance, and prepared for a season of atonement in an extensive interview with the Toronto Sun.
“One must strive to learn from setbacks and identify opportunities from every adversity in life,” Manoah stated. “I had always done that, but I kind of stopped doing it for a while.
“It’s something I’m definitely going back to, clearing the dust and carrying on with good progress. “That seems like a lot of progress to me, but this game is hard repeatedly.”
Last season, it was especially challenging since he had misaligned mechanics going into spring training and was never able to get them properly aligned. In retrospect, as a tough rival and devoted teammate, there are two instances that stick out as especially challenging to process.
The first demotion occurred in the weeks following June 6 and left the Jays with a four-man rotation for over a month due to a lack of organizational starter depth.
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On one of the calmest days of camp thus far, Manoah, looking at ease in the early light, remarked, “I think the hardest part was that on our team we had probably the best starting pitchers and if I could have just been serviceable, I feel we could have gone a lot further, you know?” The difficult part was when these men were essentially piggybacking off of each other and tossing every four days.
“I desired to be there supporting those men. For my part, all I was looking for was a way to return.
His remarks reveal something about his psychology: he is a team player who is motivated to succeed. What’s his point? He thinks the Jays would have won more games, maybe avoided wild-card hell, and the perception of the franchise would have changed significantly if he had been even somewhat successful the previous season. He was striving to make things right, and it was a lot to bear.
That thinking is connected to the second most difficult time.
Manoah, who had left the squad by then, recalled, “Watching the team go to the playoffs โ celebrating clinching that playoff berth at the end of the year โ that was tough.” “And those were really awful moments after opening day when the Cardinals kicked the shit out of me.”
Things seemed to really fall apart after the second demotion in August, with many even doubting Manoah’s continued status with the team. He didn’t report to Buffalo at first, and it was clear that he was perplexed by the lack of a solution. He spent the rest of 2023 not pitching in a major – or minor league game.