Tony Lacava, the Blue Jays’ senior vice president of player personnel, had never heard Steve Sanders talk like this.

Lacava was driving to a high school game in Chicago when Sanders, the Jays’ amateur scouting director at the time, called his cell. Sanders, normally low-key, was so excited that Lacava pulled over to the side of the road.

“For an hour, he wouldn’t stop,” Lacava said. “I couldn’t get a word in.”

Sanders had just seen Alek Manoah.

The 2019 amateur draft was nearly two months away. The Blue Jays held the 11th overall pick. Coulson Barbiche, the Jays area scout covering West Virginia University, had put a first-round grade on Manoah after seeing the 6-foot-6 right-hander dominate at Kennesaw State in the first start of his junior season. But Sanders, who is now an assistant general manager with the Pirates, did not witness the full Manoah experience until almost two months later.

Unranked West Virginia was at home against No. 11 Texas Tech, a Big 12 conference rival featuring another first-round candidate, third baseman Josh Jung. And Manoah, pitching in the Friday night slot typically reserved for a college team’s No. 1 starter, delivered a staggering performance, throwing a four-hit shutout with 15 strikeouts and no walks.

Eight days later, Lacava took another look for himself. Lacava lives in Pittsburgh, about a 90-minute drive from the West Virginia campus in Morgantown, so he already had seen Manoah multiple times. West Virginia, which had just moved into the top 20, was facing unranked Kansas. And Manoah, pitching at 11:05 a.m. in the first game of a doubleheader, produced almost a carbon copy of his shutout against Texas Tech. The only difference was that he allowed three hits instead of four while again striking out 15 and walking none.

Jeff Randazzo, a former minor-league pitcher who was Manoah’s advisor and soon to be his agent, also was in the ballpark that day. Major League Baseball already had invited Manoah to attend the draft at MLB Network on June 3. West Virginia’s season figured to be over by then. Randazzo had been discussing with Manoah the pros and cons of participating in the live studio show, warning the pitcher he could get “iced.”

“What’s ‘iced’ mean?” Manoah asked.

“Bro, you could be just sitting there, and you’re just iced,” Randazzo replied. “The TV’s on you, and then you don’t get taken that night. You get iced.”

Shortly after shutting out Kansas, Manoah was still on the field, talking on the phone, when he spotted the 6-foot-7 Randazzo maybe 30 feet away.

“Yo big Jeff,” he shouted. “You think they’re icing that s—?”