The Los Angeles Angels badly need pitching help, and Alek Manoah and Kirby Yates both stepped up last night.
The Los Angeles Angels couldn’t solve Toronto Blue Jays starter Dylan Cease last night in their 2-0 loss, but they may have taken a couple of important steps toward solving their bullpen problems based on the initial outings of Alek Manoah and Kirby Yates.
No one knew what was going to happen when Manoah took to the hill, as he hasn’t appeared in a major league game since 2024. But Manoah mostly controlled the strike zone in his scoreless inning, and the starter turned temporary reliever noted that the newness of this appearance was palpable.
“It was good, man,” Manoah said with a big smile in a piece written by Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. “Felt like a debut again. It’s been a long time so it was good to be out there, pumping some strikes.”
Manoah struggled with velocity, control and a fingernail issue in spring training, but he put those problems aside against the Blue Jays. He got his four-seam fastball up close to 95 mph, and while he did uncork a couple of wild pitches that skipped all the way to the backstop, he looked comfortable and was impressively consistent for a guy who hasn’t pitching in a game in a long time.
“I thought about it probably every day of that 700-day journey,” Manoah said of his return. “Just doing everything I can -- the rehab, trying to get my body right, my mind right, get everything right. I’m just happy to get the opportunity.”
The former Blue Jays starter has volunteered to throw innings out of the bullpen, and this was an important first step. It’s been a long road back for Manoah, and he indicated that the key was sticking to his process during his lengthy rehab.
“We have routines,” Manoah said of how he kept his composure. “We got resets, we got red lights, green lights, and just sticking to them. That’s how the moment doesn't get big. You just stay pitch to pitch. My job is to execute pitches whether it's been 700 days or seven days. Just execute pitches.”
Reliever Kirby Yates was also able to do that, and he’s just as important as Manoah, if not more so. The potential closer did give up a hit and a weird, inexplicable balk, but the big news was that he was able to navigate the hit and pitch a scoreless frame, as manager Kurt Suzuki noted.
“It was good to see both of those guys,” Suzuki said. “I know [Manoah] has been working hard and for him to go out there and go 1-2-3 was awesome. Yates threw some good offspeed stuff. And he got out of it with a runner on second base. It was nice to see.”