Thirty Five Years Ago
The Blue Jays clinched first place in the AL East by beating the Orioles 4-3. We scored 3 runs in the eighth to come back 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 of 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 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 had a 3.77 ERA with 15 saves.
Nine Years Ago
The Blue Jays won game one of a doubleheader 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 doubleheader (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
I barely remember some of those guys 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 three (Jose Bautista was the star, driving in 5 runs with a 0.41 WPA for the series). However, we lost out in the ALCS to the Royals in 6 games.
We also have some birthdays, but no one I want to write a full post about:
- Trent Thornton turns 31 today. He came to us in trade from the Astros for Aledmys Diaz. In five seasons with the Jays, he pitched in 108 games, making 36 starts (some were as opener). He was 7-14 with a 4.77 ERA. He’s been a Mariner for the last year and a half.
- Hagen Danner turns 26 today. He’s pitched 0.1 innings for us (in 2023). Unfortunately, he was injured for a fair bit of this season this year. I hope he’s healthy next year and helps usin the bullpen.
- Craig Kusick turns 58. He played 23 games for us in 1979, his last season in the majors. Before that he was a Twin for seven years. A first baseman, he hit .235/.342/.392 in his 496 games in the majors.
- Bryan Bullington turns 44. He pitched 6 innings for the Jays in 2009. In total he pitched in parts of 5 seasons, a total of 26 games.
- Curtis Goodwin turns 52. He played the last two games of his five-year career with the Jays in 1999. He played in 431 games with a .248/.307/.302 line in his career.
- Brian Moran turns 36. In 2020, he pitched an inning over two games for the Jays. Over three years, he threw 11.1 innings. But this guy is a big fan:
