{"id":57798,"date":"2023-03-24T15:15:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T19:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=57798"},"modified":"2023-03-24T15:18:17","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T19:18:17","slug":"alek-manoah-opening-day-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/03\/24\/alek-manoah-opening-day-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Alek Manoah named Blue Jays Opening Day Starting Pitcher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/03\/21\/otto-lopez-2023-blue-jays\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Toronto Blue Jays<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> have announced that Alek Manoah will be the starting pitcher against the St. Louis Cardinals on Opening Day. It&#8217;s the first time in Manoah&#8217;s career that he will get the ball on the first day of the regular season. The 25-year-old will be tasked with anchoring a rotation with depth that includes Kevin Gausman, Jos\u00e9 Berr\u00edos, and Chris Bassitt. Yusei Kikuchi will likely earn the fifth spot in the rotation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Big Puma = Big Business \ud83d\ude24 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Alek_Manoah6?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Alek_Manoah6<\/a> is our <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/OpeningDay?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#OpeningDay<\/a> starter! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dP7CuKFhw9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/dP7CuKFhw9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BlueJays\/status\/1639297002235109378?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 24, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Alek Manoah All-Star 2022 Season<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Last year was a breakout year for the right-hander. In 196 and 2\/3 innings, Manoah had a record of 16-7, an ERA of 2.24, and 180 strikeouts. Which gave him his first all-star appearance, and he finished third in the American League Cy Young Race. The twenty-five-year-old will be going into his third season with Toronto and has become a fan favorite. As one of the emerging starters in the American League, he has become a formidable opponent for those facing the Blue Jays. Last season, he had an ERA of 2.64 against the Baltimore Orioles, 2.31 against the New York Yankees, 1.37 against the Tampa Bay Rays, and 1.04 against Boston. As the Blue Jays make a push for the American League East, Manoah will lead the charge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Blue Jays Opening Day History\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Alek Manoah will become the sixth different Blue Jays pitcher to start Opening Day in the last seven years. In the Shapiro\/Atkins era, starting pitching has been good, but the team still needs to find an ace of the staff. The Blue Jays pitcher to get the win on Opening Day was Marcus Stroman in 2016 against Tampa Bay. Although likely, Manoah may not last long as the last four Opening Day starters ended with a no-decision. Fans were wishing that the 32-year-old Gausman would get the start because of his impressive spring. However, the Blue Jays went with their best starter from 2022.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">In their last ten Opening Days, the Toronto Blue Jays are 5-5. Last year they won in a thriller against the Texas Rangers. This will be the first time in their 47-year history they will start the season against a National League opponent. The Blue Jays season begins on Thursday, March 30, in St. Louis. The game will start at 4:10 pm EST.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n<p>Players mentioned:<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/manoaal01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-24_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alek Manoah<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gausmke01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-24_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Gausman<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/berrijo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-24_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jos\u00e9 Berr\u00edos<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bassich01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-24_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chris Bassitt<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kikucyu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-24_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yusei Kikuchi<\/a><\/strong>, <span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/stromma01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-24_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marcus Stroman<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Toronto Blue Jays have announced that Alek Manoah will be the starting pitcher against the St. Louis Cardinals on Opening Day. It&#8217;s the first time in Manoah&#8217;s career that he will get the ball on the first day of the regular season. The 25-year-old will be tasked with anchoring a rotation with depth that includes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3158,"featured_media":57804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1071,35,7],"tags":[2650,4223,1043,1331,2298],"class_list":["post-57798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-mlb","category-news","category-bluejays","tag-alek-manoah","tag-chris-bassitt","tag-jose-berrios","tag-kevin-gausman","tag-yusei-kikuchi"],"modified_by":"Troy Brock","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}