Blue Jays Maintain Lead, 2-0

The Toronto Blue Jays feel they have laid to rest the corpse, but they have a ways to go before they can bury the Baltimore Orioles.

The Blue Jays snapped a two-game losing streak and maintained their one-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles in the American League East by defeating Detroit for the ninth consecutive time Monday night as Tony Fernandez hit a two-run homer in a 2-0 victory over the Tigers.

In 1987, the Blue Jays led Detroit by 2 1/2 games with six remaining but finished a game behind after being swept in the final series of the season at Tiger Stadium.

“Everybody keeps bringing up 1987,” Toronto Manager Cito Gaston said. “I hope you’ll remember we played without Tony Fernandez, who hit the home run tonight, and also without Ernie Whitt. They were both injured.

“September is always a time for great baseball. The only feeling I know of in our clubhouse is that we want to win this division, not to show anybody anything about 1987. We’re getting tired of hearing about 1987.”

Baltimore kept pace by defeating the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-3. The Blue Jays and Orioles close out the regular season with three games in Toronto this weekend.

Jimmy Key (13-14) allowed six hits with nine strikeouts and no walks in seven innings. Tom Henke yielded one hit and struck out three in the final two innings for his 18th save.

“We’ve just got to go out and win games,” Key said. “If we win five of six, we win it.”

Detroit rookie Brian DuBois (0-4) gave up only four hits in seven innings, but one of them cost him the game.

“It was my fault,” DuBois said of Fernandez’s homer. “It was the third changeup I’d thrown him and it was one too many.”

The Blue Jays, second in the majors with 141 home runs, had hit just one in their previous seven games before Fernandez connected on a 2-and-2 pitch for his 11th of the season with one out in the second inning after Fred McGriff walked.

“We haven’t been playing real good the past couple of weeks,” Henke said. “The fact we’re still in it shows the character of this team.”