MANCHESTER, N.H. – 2022 American League All-Star Alek Manoah has not had a good season to say the least, with the latest step in his road to hopefully recovering his lost form coming on Sunday night at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.
In spite of a strong outing from Manoah, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats fell to the Portland Sea Dogs, 12-5.
The Homestead, Fla. Native escaped a jam in the first before allowing the game’s first run in the second, a seeing-eye line drive to right by Portland third baseman Alex Binelas.
In the third, there was a bit of a scare when a Portland shortstop Marcelo Mayer comebacker hit Manoah in the leg, but he managed to retire Mayer at first and stay in the contest.
He would last five innings and struck out 10 Sea Dog batters, with 47 of his 82 pitches going for strikes. It was a far cry from last week, where he gave up 11 runs over 2 2/3 innings in his first appearance after being sent down from Toronto.
For Manoah, who went from Single-A ball in Vancouver in 2019 straight to Triple-A Buffalo in 2021 after COVID-19 eliminated the 2020 Minor League Baseball Season, Sunday was his first time pitching in Manchester. Still, he seemed to feel comfortable in the new surroundings and believed that he has rediscovered confidence after some struggles.
“The biggest thing for me is the adjustment pitch to pitch. Earlier in the year, I’d go two or three batters before I’d make an adjustment, and sometimes not even get into the adjustment,” he said. “Even when I threw some balls or a couple of consecutive balls, getting right back to where I need to be, I say that’s the best part.”
Steward Berroa evened things up with a solo homer in the fifth shortly after Manoah’s departure, but Mayer would take the lead back with his sixth homer of the year in the sixth. New Hampshire would open their half of the sixth with four straight singles, leading to what would become a 5-2 lead before Portland finally retired the side. However, that would be nowhere near enough.
Portland exploded for ten unanswered runs off eight hits in the next two innings, highlighted by dingers by Binelas and Kavadas, too much for the Fisher Cats to recover from.
Mason Fluharty (2-2) got the loss, giving up three of those runs during Portland’s offensive onslaught.
New Hampshire (36-37) finished the night with ten hits of their own, with Berroa, Trevor Schwecke, Rainer Nunez and Orelvis Martinez each grabbing a pair.
The series concludes on Monday with a 7:05 p.m. contest. Portland will send Issac Coffey (1-0, 4.50 ERA) to the mound against a Fisher Cat starter yet to be named.
