The key to his remarkable season is that even on the rare occasions when he doesn’t have a straight showing, he still finds a way to be really good, as he was while pitching six valiant innings of one-hit ball in Sunday’s 5-4 shutout. Toronto Blue Jays loss to Baltimore Orioles. Only a rare hit by Jordan Romano – he allowed the first four batters to reach, the last being a two-run single by Adley Rutschman and a Jesus Aguilar RBI groundout in his fifth save of the season – prevented Manoah from securing a three point. sweep game. A comeback effort in the bottom of the ninth fell just short for the Blue Jays (83-64), as George Springer missed a game-tying homer by inches, settling for a run-scoring double that made it a one-run game. After a walk to Wladimir Guerrero Jr., Felix Bautista induced a sharp pitch to end Beau Bisset. The loss was just their fifth this month, a streak that ensures they head into next week ahead of the Seattle Mariners (80-64), who were at the Los Angeles Angels for the top wild card spot and six games out of the fourth-place Orioles (76-69). Still, it led to a disappointing finish in a grueling 5-3 home stretch that included a day-night doubleheader on Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Blue Jays appeared set after Guerrero Jr.’s solo shot in the seventh opened a 3-1 lead before a Rogers Center crowd of 41,301. But the toll of a busy run perhaps began to show as Adam Cimber allowed a solo shot to Aguilar in the eighth before Romano, without his usual command and slider plus, burned for a triple. Without a fifth starter, the Blue Jays have run three bullpen days in the past two weeks, no doubt a contributing factor. Manoah allowed just four hits, but also had a season-tying walk, which left him repeatedly avoiding traffic to avoid significant damage. Some strong defense, first and foremost Teoscar Hernandez’s leap over the right field wall to rob Anthony Santander at first, certainly helped. But he got himself out of trouble in two key spots: inducing a Santander pop up and striking out Gunnar Henderson with two on and one out in the second, and he walked Robinson Chirinos and got Cedric Mullins to fly out after his RBI double Jorge Mateo. he left runners on second and third in the fourth. Those moments rested against a Blue Jays rally in the third that was extinguished after Bichette’s RBI single — when Matt Chapman hit the 10th triple play in franchise history — and Danny Jansen’s solo shot in the fourth that restored the 2 -1. Manoah’s pitching has been steady throughout a season of wild swings for the Blue Jays, with Sunday’s outing marking his 23rd quality start of the year. While by no means a perfect stat, the fact that 23 of his 29 outings hit that benchmark is indicative of the 24-year-old’s consistency. Consider that in all those starts, he hasn’t allowed more than four earned runs, and that’s only happened four times. And just six times has he pitched fewer than six innings, never pitching fewer than five frames. It’s his reliability that has helped make these outings a success, as the Blue Jays have gone three bullpen games to fill the vacant fifth spot in the rotation over the past two weeks. Manoah was without Alejandro Kirk, who ran the bases Saturday but was given another day to recover from his hip tightness. He pitched to Jansen for the first time this season.
