Manoah helps Blue Jays top Rays 4-2, maintain wild-card spot

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Rookie Alek Manoah rebounded from early control issues to last six innings and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the AL East-leading Tampa Bay Rays 4-2 on Tuesday night to improve to a major league-best 16-4 in September.

Toronto maintained a half-game lead lead over the New York Yankees for the second AL wild card. Tampa Bay, closing in on its second straight division title, is six games ahead of second-place Boston. The Rays, just 9-11 this month, have 10 games remaining.

“Anytime you beat the Rays, you’ve got to play you’re ‘A’ game, and again we did that tonight,” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoya said.

There were no incidents one day after Tampa Bay’s Kevin Kiermaier scooped up a data card that fell out of Toronto catcher Alejandro Kirk’s wristband during a play at the plate in the sixth inning and refused to give it back to the Blue Jays.

Rays manager Kevin Cash apologized to Montoyo before the game.

“So now it's agua under the bridge,” Montoyo said.

Manoah (7-2) allowed two runs and five hits. stuck out seven and walked six — double his previous season high. Four of the walks occurred during the opening two innings. The rookie right-hander allowed one hit over eight innings in an 8-0 win over Tampa Bay on Sept. 13.

Toronto has won three of five against the Rays over the last nine days.

When asked what message the Blue Jays are sending to the others about the AL wild-card race, he replied “We're here.”

Jordan Romano, the third Toronto reliever, walked Ji-Man Choi, Yandy Díaz and Randy Arozarena with two outs in the ninth, Joey Wendle lined a ball just foul down the right-field line on the first pitch, then hit a flyout to right that gave Romano his 20th save in 21 chances.

Tampa Bay drew 11...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Manoah-helps-Blue-Jays-top-Rays-4-2-maintain-16477785.php