Blue Jays Don’t Get Choked Up : They Clinch Tie, Beating Orioles in 11th Inning, 2-1

When it appeared that the lump in the throat of the Toronto Blue Jays remained less retractable than the SkyDome roof, the Blue Jays took a hard swallow, got help from the Baltimore Orioles and seem on the verge now of having it dislodged.

Bidding to shake the memory of their playoff and division collapses of 1985 and 1987, the Blue Jays beat the fairy-tale Orioles, 2-1, in 11 innings Friday night to clinch at least a tie for the American League’s Eastern Division title.

The Orioles’ last-to-first aspiration now hinges on a sweep of the regular season’s last two games, which would force a playoff for the division championship Monday in Baltimore.

It won’t be easy, since the Orioles must cope with Jimmy Key (13-14), who is 5-0 since his return from the disabled list, today and Dave Stieb (17-8) Sunday, if that game means anything.

Would the Orioles, losers of 107 games last year, be satisfied finishing second after having led for 116 games of a remarkable season?

“No. We’ve come too far,” rookie relief ace Gregg Olson said. “We had a taste of first place and liked it.

“We’ve had a great season, but now we have a chance to do what no one has done in a while (only one team since 1900 has gone from last to first in consecutive seasons) and we’re not going to lay down. We’re not going to be satisfied if we don’t get it done.”

For the Blue Jays, their label has been that of a choker. They lost the 1985 playoffs to the Kansas City Royals after leading, three games to one. They lost the 1987 division title by dropping their last seven games, blowing a 3 1/2-game lead.

“We’re not chokers but we have to prove that to ourselves,” center fielder Lloyd Moseby said Friday night. “As professionals, you don’t get that many opportunities, and we can’t let another get away.”

A crowd of 49,636, the largest for baseball since the SkyDome opened in midseason, saw Moseby hit an opposite-field double off Mark Williamson in the 11th inning to score the winning run.

Williamson would later question the strategy of his manager, Frank Robinson, in ordering an intentional walk to the preceding batter, Junior Felix, but it was a game in which both teams could second-guess themselves for wasted opportunities.

The Orioles stranded 11 runners, six in scoring position. They twice left the bases loaded and scored only when Phil Bradley, their leadoff hitter, hit Todd Stottlemyre’s game-opening pitch into the second deck in left field.

The Blue Jays also left 11 runners on base, including seven in scoring position. They twice left the bases loaded and saw a total of three runners thrown out on the bases in the second and third innings.

Baltimore left-hander Jeff Ballard, 18-8 in his first full season, gave up six hits in 7 1/3 innings before Toronto tied the score on a wild pitch by Olson in the eighth.

Mookie Wilson, a catalyst since his July acquisition from the New York Mets, opened that inning with a single off Ballard but was forced at second base by Fred McGriff.

Olson, whose 27 saves make him the favorite to become the league’s rookie of the year, replaced Ballard. Tom Lawless ran for McGriff and stole second on the first pitch to the next hitter, George Bell.

“Sparky (first base coach Mike Squires) told me that Frank (Robinson) hadn’t pitched out in the last four or five games,” Lawless said. “I’m going to go in that situation, it doesn’t matter if the guy has a big leg kick or not.”

Bell grounded out, moving Lawless to third. He then scored on Olson’s wild pitch, which came on a 1-and-2 curve to Kelly Gruber that bounced in the dirt and kicked away from catcher Jamie Quirk.

“I should have blocked it,” Quirk said. “If I call for the pitch it’s my responsibility to block it. Gregg has an outstanding curve. We had two strikes on the hitter. He threw it where we wanted it and it took a tricky bounce, but I still should have had it. I’ve blocked that pitch a dozen times since I’ve been with the Orioles and I’ll block it a dozen times again.”

Said Olson, who has thrown nine wild pitches, second in the league to the Blue Jays’ Duane Ward: “I’ve lived all year on the curveball in the dirt. I probably lead the world in wild pitches. It’s nothing new. It took a bad kick away from Jamie, but that’s part of the game.

“I don’t think people are going to look back and say that one bad pitch cost us the pennant or ruined my season. I’m not destroyed by this. I’ve been beaten before by that pitch and I would throw it again in the same situation.”

Olson came back to strike out Bell, pitch a flawless ninth and work out of a bases-loaded situation in the 10th.

“I felt fine, I could have kept going,” he said. “I would have pitched until my arm fell off and I picked it up and walked off.”

Robinson, however, summoned Williamson, his other relief star, to pitch the 1lth.

Williamson, who came in with a 10-3 record and nine saves, had one out when Manny Lee singled and yielded to pinch-runner Nelson Liriano, who took second on a ground-out.

Felix, who had entered the game as a pinch-runner in the 10th and had only four RBIs in his last 46 games as a reserve outfielder, was walked intentionally.

“You got one left-handed hitter (Felix) and another (Moseby),” Robinson said. “Has Moseby been burning it up? I wanted to give the infield a chance for a force play at three bases. You roll the dice. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Moseby entered the game hitting only .219 for the season and only .170 for his last 11 games. He had singled and walked twice in five at-bats, a fact that Williamson cited later when asked if he would have preferred facing Felix.

“Just put it this way,” he said. “Would you rather face a guy who hadn’t had an at-bat all night or a guy locked in all night like Moseby was?

“I mean, Moseby was taking borderline strikes as if he knew they were balls and they were. I got to 2 and 1 on him, couldn’t afford to go to 3 and 1, and got a pitch up. Unfortunately he didn’t miss it.”

Said Moseby: “I guess Frank was saying, ‘We can get you out.’ In that situation it did fire me up. But it wasn’t a bad managerial move. It just didn’t work out.”

Moseby added that he has these three games in which to be a hero, after feeling like a goat for almost six months. Stottlemyre shed the horns after his first pitch to Bradley by working five shutout innings. Jim Acker pitched four more and Tom Henke another two, striking out four.

“This was going to be a tough loss for either team, but more so because we had so many opportunities to win it,” Robinson said. “But we came in knowing we had to win two of three to take it back to Baltimore and we still do. Nothing has changed.”