2023 Toronto Blue Jays Season Thread

[Party Elephant]

Nice one Kooch.

[KelVarnsen]

What a great start for Kikuchi

[ben voyonsdonc]

Kikuchiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!

[flames_fan_down_under]

He has been great lately, and just such an easy guy to root for. Happy Kikuchi is a Jay.

[ben voyonsdonc]

The bounce backs from Berríos and Kikuchi should give Manoah a roadmap for getting back on track. Terribad seasons can be overcome. I think Manoah’s fundamentals can be fixed and his confidence will bounce back very quickly.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Originally Posted by ben voyonsdonc

The bounce backs from Berríos and Kikuchi should give Manoah a roadmap for getting back on track. Terribad seasons can be overcome. I think Manoah’s fundamentals can be fixed and his confidence will bounce back very quickly.

100% It’s still up to Alek how much work he wants to put in to getting back to his better form, but I’m optimistic he can do it.

[ben voyonsdonc]

I think Alek will put in the work.

The thing about pitching is that super marginal and almost undetectable details can make a huge impact. Alek’s stuff alone isn’t good enough to manage when he isn’t fundamentally strong. For a guy who had so little time in the minors, he never fully baked his fundamentals and he tried to fight through regardless. With time down in the pitching lab, they can diagnose exactly where he is inefficient and give him cues to help him know when he is off and tips on how to self-correct.

He was like a kid who breezed through school without needing to learn how to study and how to deal with times when he wasn’t the best in class and the course material was really challenging. Then university classes hit and you don’t have the tools to get through it. He didn’t know how to correct his problems because he couldn’t identify the problems.

[ben voyonsdonc]

The A’s are well…exactly as bad as their record indicates.

[KelVarnsen]

When Biggio connects he has a great swing

[flames_fan_down_under]

Jays got the job done. Great to see Vladdy connecting with some extra base hits.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

This is a bit concerning.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1673736954427457545

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Yeeesh. Hopefully a lot of those runs are due to some bad defense or something. Still, if they’re 18-19 year olds you’d hope he’d strike out a whole bunch instead of getting hit around.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1673741006204813313

[Muffins]

Depends on what he was trying to accomplish in that start. If he's still working on mechanics and they just have him throwing fastballs at 80-90% effort for the time being, yeah you're gonna get lit up.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Yeah it's hard to put too much stock into these type of outings. Could simply be a move to just look for a repeated delivery, and focussing entirely on mechanics without any concern for the results.

[flamingred89]

What I find interesting about Manoah is he used to be a chronic poster on his social media. It's been crickets for a month or two now. I don't know if that's a team mandate or not, as Vlad is still pretty active, but definitely the signs of a guy going through it right now.

[Roof-Daddy]

I'd almost just go ahead and say Manoah is finished.

If he ever comes back from this it'll be quite the story.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

I'd almost just go ahead and say Manoah is finished.

If he ever comes back from this it'll be quite the story.

Wat.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by flamingred89

What I find interesting about Manoah is he used to be a chronic poster on his social media. It's been crickets for a month or two now. I don't know if that's a team mandate or not, as Vlad is still pretty active, but definitely the signs of a guy going through it right now.

I'd say it's Manoah staying off of public forums because his career is circling the drain, his confidence is shot and posting on social media just makes you even more of a target.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Wat.

Haha the guy was in CY conversations last season, then only lasted two months this iseason in MLB before being demoted to the Jays pitching facility to work on things, then pitched a game against 18/19 year olds and was yanked after 2.2 IP with 30+ ERA

If he manages to somehow pull out of this career nose dive a make it back to being an effective MLB pitcher I will be impressed. Seems improbable at best right now.

[Blaster86]

You realize that the game he pitched in was akin to a spring training start for him? They gave him two or three things to do and that's all he was going to do. As pointed out, of course you're going to get tee'd off on. Getting or not getting tee'd off on isn't relevant there.

I'm not saying he's guaranteed to rebound, but that game isn't a great barometer to base that on.