Former Blue Jays ace Pat Hentgen recalls own struggles: Not worried about Alek Manoah

TORONTO Arriving for Blue Jays spring training in 1995, Pat Hentgen remembered feeling like he had it all figured out. Its understandable why, too. The former Blue Jays right-hander was coming off back-to-back All-Star seasons in 1993 and 1994.

TORONTO — Arriving for Blue Jays spring training in 1995, Pat Hentgen remembered feeling like he had it “all figured out.” It’s understandable why, too. The former Blue Jays right-hander was coming off back-to-back All-Star seasons in 1993 and 1994.

“And then the American League East gives you some humble pie,” Hentgen said Friday before the Blue Jays’ 6-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. “And I think that’s what happened.”

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Indeed, after establishing himself as a dependable major-league starter, Hentgen experienced a step back in 1995. He was hit hard and often, giving up the most hits (236) and earned runs (114) in the majors. It all added up to a disappointing 5.11 ERA.

“It was hard,” said Hentgen, who now works as a special assistant for the Blue Jays and has been in Toronto this week, helping fill in while bullpen coach Jeff Ware was away from the team. “It just seemed like I couldn’t stay out of the big inning that year.”

Given his experience, Hentgen can empathize with how Blue Jays starter Alek Manoah might be feeling this season. A year after he established himself as one of the best starters in baseball and finished third in American League Cy Young voting, the 25-year-old right-hander has gotten off to a slow start in 2023. Across his first nine starts, Manoah has a 5.40 ERA and has a 1-4 record. He’s failed to go beyond five innings in all but two of his outings this season. A year ago, that only happened twice in 31 starts.

Over the past two seasons, Manoah had been one of the best pitchers at inducing weak contact, but this season he’s getting hit harder (42 percent hard-hit rate). Command has been a major issue, too. He’s walking 6.4 batters per nine innings this year compared to 2.3 last year while also striking out a batter fewer per nine innings.

The Blue Jays have remained confident Manoah, who will start Saturday against the Orioles, will return to the dominant pitcher he was over the past two seasons and that his work in between starts has been thorough and encouraging.

“The thing that gives me such confidence about Alek is he has, I think, the hardest part of performing at this level figured out and it’s the compete factor and never backing down from a challenge,” general manager Ross Atkins said this week. “He’s working hard, he’s accountable and trying to find ways to be more consistent. I think it really just comes down to the walks are a little up for him and more consistently being on the plate and executing in the zone and we’ll see better results.”

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After his last start against the Yankees in which he gave up a career-high seven walks over four innings while allowing five runs on six hits, Manoah was resolved to find a solution to his struggles.

“This game will punch you right in the mouth and it’s my job to show up every day and give this team a chance,” he said. “I do everything I can between starts. Bullpens feel like everything’s kind of coming together and right now the game is just testing me and you find out who’s who when things aren’t going well.”

Going back to Hentgen’s tough 1995 season, there were some off-the-field circumstances that made that time more stressful, namely, his first daughter was born that season. “Luckily, my mom and (my wife’s) mom were there to help us,” he said. “There are lots of things that factor into people’s playing careers.”

During his struggles, Hentgen said he often turned to his pitching coaches and his teammates to find out if they could see anything he wasn’t seeing while on the mound. He also looked at video of his outings, although that doesn’t always contain the answers a pitcher is looking for.

Pat Hentgen pitches against the A’s in 2004, his final season. (Don Smith / MLB Photos via Getty Images)

“Maybe you might find a mechanical flaw. Maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s just some bad luck,” he said. “Baseball can be that way. You can be pitching really, really well and then have bad luck and not have a good game results-wise and then you go back home that night and you think, well, I got to change this, I got to change that, meantime, you don’t need to do anything, but just go back out and do your routine and get back to business.”

However, the 1995 season turned out to be the precursor to Hentgen’s finest year with the Blue Jays. In 1996, he had a 3.22 ERA, won 20 games and led the majors in innings pitched (265 2/3), complete games (10) and shutouts (three). He was worth 8.6 bWAR that season alone. Oh, and he also won the Cy Young Award, the first for the franchise.

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When Hentgen came into spring training in 1996, he said he decided to “focus on the basics.”

“I think that sometimes you overanalyze and try to make all kinds of adjustments and really, all you need to do is get back to the simple things,” he said. “Keep things simple. That’s what I think I did. I just got back to simplifying my game. Not trying to do things I’m not good at or not trying to do things that other guys on the staff were good at and having success. I wasn’t good at that, so I had to really refine my game and figure out what I was good at.”

That season, Hentgen had a strong, if not spectacular first half, but he surged in the summer, going 12-4 in the second half while pitching to a 2.58 ERA. Seven of his 10 complete games came in July onward, including four in August.

Riding his high confidence, Hentgen also relied on his catcher, Charlie O’Brien, a defensive specialist who had successfully caught Greg Maddux during his 1995 Cy Young season with the Atlanta Braves. Throughout his career to that point, Hentgen had primarily pitched inside, but O’Brien “exposed me to the outside corner and I think that really helped me win the Cy Young,” Hentgen said.

Hentgen has spent time with the Blue Jays pitching staff during spring training and has filled in briefly twice this season while their pitching coaches had to step away. He’s kept close ties to the organization over the years and has seen how good Manoah can be. He’s been particularly impressed with his mound presence, his wipeout slider and his fastball when he’s commanding it.

“He’s on pace to have a great career. He’s off to an incredible start. I’m not worried at all,” Hentgen said. “He’s got great stuff and I think he’s going to self-coach and with the help (of) all the staff here, he’s going to turn it around.”

If Hentgen had advice for Manoah, he said he would tell him to do what he did.

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“I’d say get back to simple things, get back to what you were doing last year, get back to your game in Kansas City when I saw him there, I was filling in (as the bullpen coach) there and he went seven scoreless on a day that he didn’t have his great stuff,” Hentgen said. “He’s a competitor. He’s a gamer. I’m not worried about Alek Manoah.”

Game notes

Against the Orioles on Friday, Toronto’s offence continued to struggle to score, going 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position. Getting the big knock has eluded the Blue Jays for much of the past week. Manager John Schneider said he thought his team was pressing a little bit.

“Especially against this team, you got to get to their starters, you have to have good, consistent at-bats against their starters who aren’t really overpowering. I know (Grayson) Rodriguez has really good stuff, but a lot of these guys live on the edges. I think that they know it,” Schneider said of how his team can get out of their offensive rut. “I think that they want it badly, so it’s just a matter of it happening. And trust the guys in the clubhouse that it’s going to turn around.”

(Top photo of Alek Manoah: Nick Turchiaro / USA Today)

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