Today in Blue Jays History: Halladay near no-hitter

Today in Blue Jays history:

26 Years Ago

Jack Morris won his 20th game of the season. He became the first Blue Jays pitcher to win 20 games. The win over the Yankees kept us 2.5 games ahead of the Brewers. It was a 12-2 win. Joe Carter drove in 4 runs, with 4 hits, including a triple. Leadoff man Devon White had 3 hits. Roberto Alomar, Dave Winfield and Candy Maldonado had 2 hits each.

Morris went 6 innings, gave up just 3 hits and no runs. Cito ran out relievers Mark Eichhorn Duane Ward and Tom Henke (who gave up 2 runs) even though we had the huge lead.

Morris would make one more start and pick up one more win. And the Jays would go on to win their first World Series.

20 Years Ago

Roy Halladay, in just his second career start, took a no-hitter into the 9th inning. With 2 outs, Tigers’ Bobby Higginson hit a home run, ending the no-hitter and the shutout.

The Jays would win the game 2-1, Shawn Green and Alex Gonzalez homered to account for our two runs.

Halladay? Well you know the story. He’d go on to have a good 1999 season and then a horrible 2000 season, putting up a 10.64 ERA, before being sent down to A ball. You know the rest of the story. He would become either the greatest or the second greatest (depending on your view of Dave Stieb) starter in Jays history.

It would take until 2010 for Roy to get his no-hitter (the 20th perfect game in MLB history) and he would get a no-hitter in his first playoff start, both unfortunately with the Philles.

8 Years Ago

We had a poll asking if Cito Gaston deserves to be in Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Dave Perkins, in the Star wrote that Cito was deserving and I was wondering if others felt the same way. 68% said no. Cito was at the end of second tour of duty with the Blue Jays. He would finish with a 894-837 record.

4 Years Ago

Dalton Pompey hits 2 triples in the Jays 4-2 win over the Orioles. Drew Hutchison would get the win and Marcus Stroman the save.

3 Years Ago

Josh Donaldson hits a 9th inning walk-off homer to lead the Jays to a 5-4 win over the Rays. The win would put the Jays 4 games up one the Yankees with 7 games to play. Justin Smoak drove in 3 runs, on 3 hits, including his 17th homer of the year.

Mark Buehrle got the start, giving up 4 runs in 6 innings. Liam Hendriks, Aaron Sanchez and Brett Cecil combined on 3 innings of scoreless relief.