Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman dishes on Alek Manoah's 2023 struggles
Could the heavy workload Manoah put up early in his MLB career have contributed to his nightmare 2023 season?
The 2023 season couldn’t have gone any worse for Toronto Blue Jays starter Alek Manoah, who can look to teammate Kevin Gausman as a positive reminder on his road to redemption.
Gausman, a 2023 American League Cy Young finalist after finishing second in the majors in strikeouts (237), wasn’t always the dominating hurler he is today. It wasn’t long ago that he had to re-discover his craft at the big-league level.
Manoah now finds himself in a similar dilemma after enduring a pair of minor-league demotions while struggling to a 5.87 ERA over 19 starts this past season.
The 25-year-old righty finished third in AL Cy Young voting in 2022, but failed to replicate his stellar performance, which included a 2.24 ERA and 180 strikeouts across a career-high 196.2 innings — the fourth-most in the AL. That hefty workload could’ve had some effect on his prolonged woes.
“To be honest, I think he went through some things in spring [training],” Gausman said during Thursday’s episode of the Foul Territory Podcast. “I think he got off to a late start physically in spring — his shoulder just wasn't — listen, the guy pitched almost 200 innings in his first full year as a starting pitcher. I’ve only gotten that close one time in my career.”
It is a fair question to raise, especially considering Manoah’s rapid accession to the majors coming out of college. He pitched just 17 innings after being drafted in 2019 before being limited to the organization’s alternate training site during the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
Then, after making significant strides in his second year of pro ball, the 2022 All-Star made only three starts at triple-A Buffalo before making his MLB debut in 2021. By the conclusion of that season, he had pitched a combined 119.2 innings between the minors and majors.
Manoah’s innings total took another significant leap in 2022, where he compiled 202.1 innings, including his lone post-season start against the Seattle Mariners in Game 1 of the wild-card series.
.@BlueJays ace @KevinGausman dishes on his teammate Alek Manoah's tough season
▶️ https://t.co/TTEYJogpav pic.twitter.com/xnbxqnhwUc— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) November 9, 2023
“When you’re a 24, 25-year-old guy, you don’t necessarily know the impact that’s going to take on your body,” Gausman said. “I think he came in and maybe tried to push it and get ready for Opening Day a little too early and never got into a good spot with his arm and with his mechanics."
Gausman, like Manoah, was also a first-round selection, so he knows exactly the type of pressure that comes with it. And he, too, was humbled by baseball numerous times before finding his footing with the San Francisco Giants in 2020.
If anyone knows what the Blue Jays’ 2023 Opening Day starter is going through, it's Gausman, who’s gained waves of experience after overcoming his own demons in previous seasons.
“I kind of tell him this game is not easy, everybody is going to go through ups and downs — I’m a prime example of that,” Gausman said of his past struggles. “I’ve been DFA’d before. I’ve been the best pitcher on the best team in baseball. I’ve been the worst pitcher on the worst team in baseball, and I’ve been everything in between.
“I think it helped me to be able to talk to guys and I think they can relate to me a little bit more than maybe most of the aces or the Nos. 1 and 2 on the teams that never went through that.”
Manoah reportedly disagreed with his second minor-league demotion last September, which seemed to create a rift between himself and the organization. As such, that could cause Toronto’s front office to explore utilizing him as a trade chip this winter.
But if the Homestead, Fla., native remains with the franchise through the offseason, he’ll likely arrive to spring training in competition for the club’s No. 5 rotation spot - joining Bowden Francis, Mitch White and Wes Parsons.
