Blue Jays Forget New Rule For This Season, Forced To Pull Pitcher Early

The Toronto Blue Jays made an easily avoidable mistake that forced them to pull starting pitcher Alek Manoah much sooner than they would have liked.

There were quite a few new rules introduced at the start of the 2023 MLB season. Yeah, it’s May, but some of the rules are still sinking for some teams, and in this case, managers.

The Blue Jays were hosting Baltimore Orioles and in the sixth inning, Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker visited Manoah after he gave up a single with one out.

Walker returned to the dugout and Manoah proceeded to hit the next batter, Ryan Mountcastle, and then struck out Adam Frazier after that.

With Orioles second baseman Joey Ortiz coming to the plate with two outs and runners on first and second in a 2-2 game, Schneider trotted out to the mound to talk strategy.

The problem is, if a team makes two mound visits in an inning, they have to make a pitching change.

Oops.

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

As the broadcasters mentioned in that clip, Schneider had no intent to pull Manoah. You can see him heading back to the dugout when he was told he’d need to make a change.

Someone in the Blue Jays dugout definitely should’ve picked up on this. It’s not like the first mound visit came in early in a marathon half-inning. It was just two batters earlier.

The Blue Hays went on to lose this one 6-5.

At least they can take something away from it though. I’m pretty sure they won’t make that mistake again anytime soon.

Follow on Twitter: @Matt_Reigle