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MLB suspends Blue Jays’ Alek Manoah 5 games? Is Rob Manfred serious?

Nick Reid Jun 22, 2021

I couldn’t believe it when I saw this on Twitter. Major League Baseball really suspended Alek Manoah five games because the Blue Jays starter hit a Baltimore Orioles batter with a pitch in Saturday’s game. And to top it off, our fearless leader Charlie Montoyo also got a game.

I don’t know if you watched Saturday’s Jays game, but Manoah didn’t have his best stuff. He gave up a few homers to the O’s and was a big reason why I went ohfer in my latest edition of Bet on the Blue Jays. After giving up back-to-back bombs in the 4th inning Manoah’s fastball misses its spot and hits Maikel Franco up high, igniting a bench-clearing scrum after the two exchanged words.

Franco seems to think it’s intentional, like he’s some hotshot slugger that Manoah should be scared of. And the timing isn’t great after Manoah just gave up a couple bombs and was definitely frustrated. But that doesn’t mean that hitting Franco was intentional, and I don’t know who in the MLB decided that it was worth a suspension but that’s a crock of shit.

I get that it caused benches to clear, and it’s not a great spot to be getting nailed if you’re Franco, but MLB has to be kidding if they’re gonna suspend a guy for this. I just don’t see intent from Manoah. He missed his spot after being rattled by those bombs. Warnings weren’t issued in the game prior to the plunk, and he hardly even deserved to get ejected at the time let alone get suspended for it.

You know why Manoah hit Franco? Because MLB decided that pitchers aren’t allowed to use any stuff whatsoever to enhance their grip on the baseball, and as a result the pitch got away from him.

Manoah’s spin rates were drastically down at the start of the game so you could tell that he needed to adapt to not being able to use sunscreen and rosin, which is the typical substance mixture that pitchers have used to enhance their grip and give them a bit better control of the ball. I get that commissioner Rob Manfred doesn’t want pitchers doctoring baseballs with Spider Tack like Gerrit Cole basically admitted to using in one of the worst interview responses I’ve ever seen, but banning sunscreen and rosin means pitchers are gonna have to adapt to the lack of control that comes with having even less grip. That’s what happened here, because a rookie like Manoah isn’t trying to take a guys head off in this situation. It’s just a moronic decision to suspend a kid who didn’t have any reason to intentionally throw at the Orioles’ seven-hitter. He’s a gamer and just wanted to get himself out of the inning without further damage. I don’t know who was in charge of determining intent was behind this, but they’re an idiot and I think it’s garbage that Manoah and Montoyo received suspensions here.

Now Manoah’s appealed the suspension, and hopefully MLB will reduce it but it’s likely he won’t start when his scheduled turn in the rotation was coming. That doesn’t mean he won’t be out there on the sixth day but it’ll still throw the Blue Jays’ starting pitching out of wack. So the suspension itself is relatively minor but there shouldn’t have been one in the first place.

What bothers me the most about this whole thing is that Major League Baseball issued Manoah a suspension for this crap, yet no player on the 2017 Houston Astros got suspended even a single game after the team stole signs and cheated their way to a World Series. Be better, Manfred.

Nick Reid

Blue Jays Contributor for DeanBlundell.com. Sport Management student at Brock University. Have seen a game at all 30 Major League ballparks. Would rather be eating poutine at the Rogers Centre.

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