Flops in Clutch Are Haunting Blue Jays

While 25 teams search for fresh arms and reserve catchers, the Toronto Blue Jays could use a decent sports psychologist.

The collective psyche of the Blue Jays has taken a beating in two of the past three seasons. A team oozing with talent has withered twice under national scrutiny and Toronto players are being criticized for crimes of the heart.

“For the past three years, this club has had the best talent in baseball,” says ex-Yankee shortstop Tony Kubek, who works as a television analyst on approximately 40 Toronto games per year. “They talk about fear of failure: I’m not so sure these guys don’t have fear of success.”

Doug Ault homered twice in the first game in franchise history as the Blue Jays beat the White Sox on April 7, 1977. Six years later, under Manager Bobby Cox, Toronto became a force in the American League East with an 89-73 mark. Just 1 1/2 games out of first place in late August, the Blue Jays lost six close games in one week and finished fourth.

“Yeah, we’ve got a lot of talent,” says All-Star reliever Tom Henke, “but you’ve got to get some breaks in this game, too.”

The Blue Jays earned their first division title in ’85 with 99 wins and seemed destined to advance to the World Series after taking a 3-1 lead against Kansas City in the AL playoffs.

Scoring only eight runs in the final 40 innings, Toronto was beaten three straight times as the Royals went on to a World Series championship.

“We can’t dwell on what happened to us last year,” Henke says of a season-ending seven-game losing streak that cost the Blue Jays another division title. “If anything, that will probably make us a little hungrier this time around.”

A seven-game winning streak had given Toronto a 3 1/2 game bulge against Detroit with just a week remaining in the regular season. That was the week that was for Blue Jay fans as the team’s offense again wilted in the clutch.

A club which averaged five runs per game on the season scored 16 runs during those final seven contests as No. 3 hitter Tony Fernandez was sidelined with a fractured bone in his elbow. Ernie Whitt, the No. 5 hitter behind AL MVP George Bell, missed the final four games with cracked ribs.

“We’ve got to find a way to make up a win or two,” says Henke, who saved 34 games but never reached the mound in that fateful final week. “I’m not saying we would have beaten the Twins in the playoffs, but Minnesota sure didn’t want to play us. What hurts most is that it was sitting right in front of us. In 1985, give Kansas City credit; St. Lois also had the Royals down three games to one in the Series.”

Whether Toronto could have beaten Minnesota in the 1987 AL Championship Series is now a matter for table top game experts to decide. As Kubek points out, “This team wins 80 games just by throwing the gloves out on the field.” But contending for a baseball championship is no longer good enough for the Blue Jays and Manager Jimy Williams.

Toronto led the league in ERA last season, Fernandez is the AL’s answer to Ozzie Smith at shortstop and Bell, Lloyd Moseby and Jesse Barfield have been hailed as baseball’s most complete outfield. But a month before the first pitch is thrown in Toronto’s April 4 opener against the Royals, Bell already could be found guilty of excessive balking.

“I’ve got to think about all this,” Bell said when Williams told him he’d be shifted from left field to designated hitter this year. “The way the club is right now, there is no way they should be messing with it. We’ve got everything -- power, speed, pitching, and a good feeling on the club. I know he (Williams) makes out the lineup, but I don’t have to like it.”

Bell did not hit a home run during the final 10 games of the season and Barfield, whose output dropped from 40 to 28, went the final 21 games without a homer.