This past week was a chaotic one for the Blue Jays.
During their four-game series with the Yankees, there was angry discourse over a glance Aaron Judge shot toward his team's dugout. There was Yankees pitcher Domingo German failing a foreign substance check. And there were coaches and managers jawing at each other from the dugouts, including insults such as "Shut up, fat boy."
Saturday afternoon was another check of the box. This time, Blue Jays pitcher Alek Manoah got into it with the Orioles' Adam Frazier, cursing him back to the dugout after a sixth-inning strikeout.
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Blue Jays manager John Schneider came out to the mound to get his man's head right. He made one tiny mistake in doing that.
Schneider had forgotten that Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker had already gone out to visit Manoah during the frame. With Schneider coming out for a second visit, Manoah was forced to leave the game,
The Blue Jays were forced to remove Alek Manoah from the game because John Schneider did not realize it was the second mound visit pic.twitter.com/e5eK64ZeaZ
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 20, 2023
The rule is that a team must change its pitcher following a second mound visit to that pitcher in the same inning. Visits made to check on a possible injury don't count against the two-trip limit.
Schneider took the blame after the game, but he also wasn't very upset with the mistake.
"I f—d up," Schneider said, per MLB.com. "But I think, regardless of my f— -up, it was the right time to get (Manoah) out."
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Manoah had thrown 85 pitches in 5 2/3 innings, the game was tied 2-2 and Baltimore had two runners on base. Reliever Tim Mayza came on and retired the next batter.
Toronto eventually went ahead 5-2, but the Orioles tied the game in the eighth on a three-run home run by Ryan O'Hearn against closer Jordan Romano. Baltimore went on to win 6-5 in 10 innings.
The loss was Toronto's third in a row and the fifth in its last six games, all at home. The Jays (25-21) have dropped to the bottom of the AL East as a result.