After the 2022 season, Alek Manoah of the Toronto Blue Jays was on top of the world.
He had just posted a 2.24-ERA season that gave him a place among the three AL Cy Young finalists that year.
However, he was a disaster to open 2023 and the Blue Jays had to send him to the minors, where they have their spring training complex, to hit the reset button.
He wound up posting an ugly 5.87 ERA amid conditioning, attitude, and mechanical issues.
He opened the 2024 campaign on the shelf with a shoulder injury and made his debut on May 5.
Overall, he has a 3.97 ERA in four starts and 22.2 frames, so the results have been a mixed bag.
He has alternated dominant starts with bad ones, and is yet to gain any consistency.
Still, he is looking much better than last year and that alone represents progress and implies a lot of work behind the scenes.
His teammate on the Blue Jays, Chris Bassitt, had encouraging words to say about him and the work he has put in.
“Chris Bassitt says Alek Manoah has ‘matured a lot,’” Chris Rose Sports tweeted with a short video of the interview.
Chris Bassitt says Alek Manoah has “matured a lot” pic.twitter.com/rjgJkNs5Dv
Bassitt, an accomplished veteran, noted that Manoah has matured as a human and has worked a lot just to return to the Jays’ rotation.
“Be humble, be thankful, and keep on working,” the pitcher said about his younger teammate.
He also called him “hyper-competitive,” which will serve him well as long as it’s all under control and for the right reasons.
Toronto needs Manoah to perform, perhaps not like he did in 2022 but at least for him to return to being a reliable pitcher who can take the ball every five days.
That will be considered a victory.