On Friday, former WVU pitcher Alek Manoah made his MLB postseason debut for the Toronto Blue Jays in game one of the American League Wild Card Series.
Manoah pitched 5.2 innings , surrendering four hits and four earned runs in the loss to the Seattle Mariners.
Manoah got out to a rocky start when he hit Mariners’ center fielder Julio Rodriguez on an 0-2 count, allowing the speedy phenom to reach base.
Rodriguez scored when Eugenio Suarez roped a double down the right field line to give Seattle an early 1-0 lead on Manoah.
With Suarez standing on second, catcher Cal Raleigh, who hit the game-winning home run to send Seattle to the playoffs, got ahold of a Manoah pitch and sent it out for another clutch home run, giving the Mariners a 3-0 first inning lead.
After the first inning, Manoah settled in, only allowing two more hits and one more run during the rest of his outing, but unfortunately for the former Mountaineer, giving up four runs would be not be good enough to keep up with his counterpart Luis Castillo.
The former Cincinnati Red, Castillo, had his best stuff going on Friday, pitching 7.1 innings of scoreless baseball.
With Castillo having his way with the Blue Jays’ offense, the early deficit would prove to be too much for Toronto to overcome, as the Mariners took game one 4-0.
“They (Seattle) beat me on my mistakes, Manoah said after his game one loss. “Today wasn’t good enough, but hopefully it’s not the last time.”
