Royals and Brett Put Pennant on the Borderline, 5-3 : Kansas City’s Win Takes Playoff With Toronto to the 7-Game Limit

The Toronto Blue Jays first tried to pitch around George Brett. Then they tried to pitch to him. Neither tactic worked, meaning they now get only one more chance to think of something new.

The Kansas City third baseman took permanent possession of Toronto right-hander Doyle Alexander Tuesday night, helping prevent the Blue Jays from taking possession of the American League pennant.

Brett, the new Mr. October, hit his third home run of the series and the third off Alexander, breaking a 2-2 tie in the fifth inning and propelling the Royals to a 5-3 victory that tied the playoff at three games apiece.

Having weathered a pair of September showdowns with the New York Yankees, the Blue Jays did not want the pressure or drama of a seventh game, but their 3-1 lead of Saturday night has evaporated.

They have stranded 17 runners in the last two games and now must face 20-game winner Bret Saberhagen in the game they didn’t want. The Kansas City ace will be starting with his normal four days of rest. Dave Stieb, the Toronto ace, will make his second straight start with only three days of rest.

Brett, who had said before the game that the pressure was on Toronto, said it again.

“There’s definitely more pressure on them,” he said. “No one wants to lose three in a row, not during the regular season, especially not during the playoffs. It’ll be a long winter for them if they do.

“I mean, we were down, 3-1, now it’s 3-3. Look around our clubhouse and you’ll see a lot of smiling faces. I don’t know how it is over there, but I don’t think they’re smiling.”

There were neither smiles nor frowns in the Blue Jay clubhouse.

“We had our backs to the wall several times in the second half,” Al Oliver said. “And now we’re going to find out how good we really are.”

Said Garth Iorg, the third baseman: “Pressure has nothing to do with it. We’ve had trouble the last two games getting a big hit. It doesn’t take long for the roof to fall in when that happens.”

Brett’s home run helped bring the roof down in Game 6, but Hal McRae, who hits behind him, had already punched a couple of holes in it.

McRae followed another cautious walk to Brett with an RBI single in the first, then doubled in a run in the third. It was 3-2 via the Brett homer when the Royals scored the decisive runs in the sixth, the pivotal hit supplied by Buddy Biancalana. The shortstop is not the legend Brett has become, but he may be taking on the role of a cult figure, thanks to TV personality David Letterman, who did the same for Terry Forster.

Letterman has been tracking Biancalana’s infrequent hits, informing his audiences of how many more Biancalana needs to catch Pete Rose.

“I may be 4,000 hits behind Pete Rose but I’m still a lot closer in my pursuit of Rose than he is in his pursuit of Johnny Carson,” Biancalana said.

A .188 hitter during the regular season, Biancalana was 2 for 12 in the playoff when he laced a double to right-center off Alexander in the sixth, scoring Jim Sundberg, who had walked to open the inning and taken second on a sacrifice.

Biancalana’s hit was the seventh and last off Alexander, a 17-game winner who allowed 14 hits and 10 runs in the 10 innings of two playoff starts.

Dennis Lamp replaced Alexander and was greeted by a Lonnie Smith double down the right-field line, scoring Biancalana with the Royals’ fifth run and leaving Manager Dick Howser in position to say later: “I wonder how Letterman feels tonight. Buddy embarrassed him a little.”

The Blue Jays were embarrassed a little, too.

They got eight hits and five walks but left nine runners on base while scoring only solo runs in the first, third and sixth innings. A crowd of 37,557 was prepared to celebrate Canada’s first pennant, but by the end of the ninth inning, the red and white Maple Leaf flags were conspicuous by their absence.

The game ended with Dan Quisenberry, the victim of two game-winning hits by Oliver in the playoffs, coming on to strike out Iorg with runners at first and second in the ninth.

Catcher Jim Sundberg leaped high after the final out, momentarily stunning Quisenberry.

“I had to ask myself, ‘Was this our fourth win?’ ” Quisenberry said. “I mean, I had to do a quick scan of the computer.

“It’s like when you’re on the road sometimes and forget what city you’re in.”

The Oliver hits? Had he forgotten them, too?

“I was thinking only about Garth Iorg,” he said. “Any pitcher will tell you that you have to forget what’s happened before and think only about the game you’re pitching now.”

Quisenberry said he had not expected to pitch in this one.

“Buddy Black pitched so good that I didn’t think they’d need me, and I still wonder if they did,” he said.

Black was originally expected to start Game 6. Then, after going seven innings as the Game 1 starter, he pitched in relief in Game 2 and warmed up three times during Game 5.

The Game 6 start when to an admittedly hyper Mark Gubicza, a 23-year-old right-hander who was 14-10 during the regular season, finishing with five straight victories.

Gubicza pitched three flawless relief innings in Game 1 of the playoffs and restricted the Blue Jays to four hits and two runs in 5 innings of this one.

Was he nervous? Did he control his emotions?

“They didn’t get away from me until after the game,” he said. “I’ve got a red hand from all the high-fives.”

There were two on with one out in the sixth when Black was summoned to replace the starter who had replaced him. He promptly yielded an RBI single to Cliff Johnson, wild-pitched the two runners into scoring position, then got both George Bell and Ernie Whitt to pop up.

The Blue Jays, second in the league in team-batting average during the regular season, wasted chances on a Brett error and two walks in the seventh, a single by Johnson in the eighth and singles by Tony Fernandez and Lloyd Moseby in the ninth, when Quisenberry forgot about Oliver and struck out Iorg.

Toronto’s wasted threats were compounded by the failure to take advantage of another strong relief job by Lamp, who yielded only the double by Smith in a stint of 3 innings and has now permitted just two hits in 9 innings of three appearances.

Alexander’s problems stemmed from Brett and McRae, a tandem now for 12 years.

It was the 39-year-old McRae who helped trigger the Royals’ second-half comeback against the Angels, returning to a full time designated-hitter role on July 22 to hit .291 and drive in 46 runs in 56 games.

He started only three of the last 16 regular-season games because of a pulled rib muscle that is still inhibiting him. He was 3 for 15 going into Tuesday’s game.

“My only regret is that I’m not completely healthy,” he said. “I haven’t swung that well, but I can’t worry about it. I can’t think negatively. I’ve got to be positive.”

Asked if his adrenaline pumps when a team seems to pitch around Brett, McRae smiled and said: “Yes, but I can’t allow myself to get too excited. I have to stay cool and look for my pitch. I have to remember to do the right things mechanically. But I do hope I keep getting chances.”

The Blue Jays have walked Brett five times in the series. He is 8 for 20 with 5 RBIs and 5 runs scored.

“Sometimes the strategy works and sometimes it doesn’t,” Brett said. “Hal and I have been a together now for a dozen years. I know what he can do, and the opposing managers know.

“If I don’t drive in the runs, he does. I said coming into this series that it might be a mistake to pitch around me.”

The five-pitch walk to Brett in the first inning came with Willie Wilson already on via a walk. There was one out and no one on in the fifth when Alexander hung a changeup and Brett hit it over the center-field fence.

It was his ninth playoff homer, breaking Steve Garvey’s record. It was also his eighth homer in his last 12 games.

“I’ve had my share of hits off Alexander,” Brett said. “But I’ve also made my share of outs against him. You have to keep adjusting. He obviously didn’t get that changeup where he wanted it.”

Brett put it where he wanted it, as he usually does in the playoffs. His career average in these affairs is .350.