Alek Manoah will make a start for the Double-A Fisher Cats on Sunday

The next stage in Alek Manoah’s quest back to the Major Leagues will be a stop in New Hampshire.

Manager John Schneider announced ahead of the Blue Jays’ game with the Boston Red Sox on Saturday that Manoah has been optioned to the Double-A Fishers Cats and he’ll start for them on Sunday.

The Blue Jays sent Manoah to the Florida Complex League back on June 6 when he got hammered by the Houston Astros and his ERA for the season ballooned to 6.36. His first start at that level don’t go very well, as the Yankees FCL team scored 11 runs off of him over the course of two-and-two-thirds innings.

This move isn’t a promotion that suggests Manoah is simply going to pitch once for New Hampshire and then once for Triple-A Buffalo before coming back to the big leagues. The Blue Jays are putting Manoah into an actual game situation, which isn’t the case with the FCL, and they’re going to take that information back to the pitching lab in Dunedin to see how he’s progressed over the month.

There’s a gaping hole in Toronto’s starting rotation that needs to be filled but the Blue Jays need to get Manoah right. Sending him out there every fifth day to get rocked isn’t going to be helpful to the team or to his long-term outlook as a pitcher.