Today in Blue Jays History

Thirty Years Ago

Well, thirty years ago today I was much younger.

And the Blue Jays clinched first place in the AL East, by beating the Orioles 4-3. We scored 3 runs in the eighth to comeback from down 3-1.

Our lineup that day:

Lloyd Moseby CF

Mookie Wilson LF

Fred McGriff 1B

George Bell DH

Ernie Whitt C

Kelly Gruber 3B

Nelson Liriano 2B

Junior Felix RF

Jimmy Key got the start, he went just 4 innings, giving up 8 hits, 3 earned, no walks and 6 strikeouts. Frank Wills threw 4 innings of shutout relief, giving up just 1 hit. Tom Henke pitched the ninth, for his 20th save.

In our big eighth inning Liriano took a walk off Orioles starter Dave Johnson. The Orioles brought in reliever Kevin Hickey, who walked pinch hitter Manual (Manny) Lee (Canadian Rob Ducey pinch ran for Lee). Out goes Hickey, in comes Mark Williamson. Moseby bunted the runners to second and third. Wilson singled home one. McGriff singled home the tying run, putting the go ahead run at third and Bell hit a sac fly to bring in the go ahead run.

Tom Henke pitched a quick ninth, getting 2 strikeouts.

The Jays would go on to lose to the A’s in 5 games in the ALCS.

We had a pretty good team:

McGriff was 25 and hit .269/.399/.525 with 36 home runs. At the time people complained about his 92 RBI “if he would just swing the bat more (he had 119 walks) he could drive in 100).

Fernandez had a down year, hitting .257/.291/.389.

Gruber hit .290/.328/.448 with 18 home runs.

Bell hit .297/.330/.458 with 18 home runs and 104 RBI.

Dave Stieb was 17-8 with a 3.35 ERA in 33 starts (but only 3 complete games).

Key went 13-14 with a 3.88 ERA.

John Cerutti was 11-11 with a 3.07 ERA.

Mike Flanagan was 8-10 with a 3.93 ERA.

Todd Stottlemyre was 7-7 with a 3.88 ERA.

Henke had a 1.92 ERA with 20 saves.

Duane Ward 3.77 ERA with 15 saves.

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Four Years Ago

The Blue Jays won game one of a double header with the Orioles to clinch first place in the AL East, getting us into the playoffs for the first time since 1993.

I didn’t write much of a recap, I wanted to celebrate:

I’m not doing a recap...you guys saw it. Marcus Stroman was unhittable. Our offense was great. And the Orioles helped out by not being able to field.

Some quick points:

8 innings of 1 run ball from Marcus Stroman...how amazing has he been. He’s gone through so much he deserves this.

We had 15 runs, 18 hits, 10 walks.

Ryan Goins was 5 for 5 with a double and a beauty of a bunt single.

Revere, Donaldson, and Pillar had 2 hits each.

Encarnacion hit his 37th home run, getting RBI 107 and 108.

Home runs from Bautista and Smoak in the top of the 9th.

The GameThread for game two has to go up in just a few minutes, so I’m going to end it here and the new GameThread will go

Give a JoD to all the players, to Gibby and to Alex. And let’s take one each for ourselves.

We lost the second game of the double header (in the rain). Gibby sat the regulars. Our lineup:

Pompey CF

Pennington LF

Carrera RF

Colabello DH

Hague 1B

Thole C

Kawasaki 3B

Barney 2B

Diaz SS

Some of those guys I barely remember being on the Jays.

Dickey threw 5 innings of scoreless ball (just 2 hits no walks), but the bullpen gave up 8 runs.

After winning an exciting ALDS, we lost the first two games, but came back to win the last 3 (Jose Bautista was the star, driving in 5 runs with a 0.41 WPA for the series), we lost out in the ALCS to the Royals in 6 games.