Blue Jays Sprinkle Salt on Oriole Tale of Hope

The Baltimore Orioles’ storybook season ended amid the shadows of the SkyDome Saturday as the Toronto Blue Jays took strides to bury a ghost story.

The Blue Jays eliminated the Orioles and won the American League’s East Division championship by rallying for three runs in the eighth inning and a 4-3 victory before 49,553 fans.

Dave Stieb, who was scheduled to face the Orioles today if the game meant anything, will now pitch Tuesday night’s opener of the American League playoffs in Oakland.

The Blue Jays, 77-48 since May 14--when Cito Gaston replaced Jimy Williams as manager--will fly to Oakland temporarily free of the weight of their reputation as chokers.

“We’ve proved everybody wrong, we’ve erased everything,” champagne-drenched center fielder Lloyd Moseby said, alluding to the playoff and division collapses of 1985 and ’87.

“People said we were too far back (12 1/2 games at one point). People said we’d choke against the Orioles,” Moseby said. “We took it to the brink but we didn’t choke.”

Mookie Wilson and a slumping Fred McGriff had run-scoring hits in the eighth, and George Bell hit a sacrifice fly that scored what proved to be the winning run.

Bell paraded through the champagne shower of the clubhouse carrying the flag of his native Dominican Republic, but there was only characteristic restraint from Gaston, credited with defusing the tension that had surfaced under Williams.

“I feel the same as I would if I was still coaching,” Gaston, the former Blue Jay batting instructor, said. “I’m happy for the players. It’s a team game. I don’t want to deal with my ego.”

The Orioles, three games back with one to play, are assured of a 31 1/2-game improvement over last season’s 107 losses, the fourth biggest improvement since 1900.

“It’s too early to put it in perspective,” Manager Frank Robinson said, “but we did accomplish an awful lot. This is a team people are going to be talking about and writing about for years.

“They’re a little disappointed right now, like I am, but that’s natural. You get this close, you can taste it. This hurts a little bit, but in time it will be something to look back on with pride. If you could guarantee that managing would be like this every year, I’d manage for the rest of my life. I’m not talking about results, but the total effort the players gave me.”

Robinson might return to the Orioles’ front office next season. He has cited the tedium of the road and the three- or four-year commitment that a team in development deserves from a manager.

Robinson held a team meeting to thank the players for their effort and remind them they can be proud of their historic comeback. He also went to the Toronto clubhouse to extend congratulations.

The Blue Jays may have defeated the demons of their past, but they didn’t bury the young Orioles.

It took an eighth-inning wild pitch to get Toronto the tying run in its 2-1 victory Friday night, and it took two walks to get Saturday’s eighth-inning rally started.

Did the Orioles give it away?

“It’s hard when you have the game in hand and let it get away,” Robinson said. “Some individuals may put too much blame on their shoulders, and that’s not right.

“I don’t think you can say we just gave it away.”

Entering the eighth, the Orioles needed only six outs to produce one of the strangest chapters of their unlikely season.

Pete Harnisch, who was scheduled to start Saturday’s game, was walking to the team hotel after Friday night’s game when he stepped on a board with a protruding nail, which punctured his right foot slightly.

Harnisch has a 2-10 career record on the road, but his previous problems had been confined to the mound. “I called the trainers when I got to the hotel, we put some ice on it and I thought I’d be fine this morning,” Harnisch said before Saturday’s game. “But I just can’t put any weight on it. I’m disappointed. I’m embarrassed.”

Teammate Billy Ripken told him to look on the bright side.

“If this was New York,” Ripken said, “some scaffolding would have fallen on you and you’d be dead.”

With Harnisch out, the Orioles switched to 29-year-old rookie Dave Johnson, who had a 4-7 record and a five-game losing streak dating to Aug. 26.

What followed seemed to characterize the Orioles’ rags-to-riches saga.

Johnson, who lives with his wife and son in a 12-by-70-foot mobile home in suburban Baltimore, drives a truck to supplement his income during the off-season. He had pitched in only five major league games in seven previous seasons with three other organizations, but gave up only two hits in seven innings Saturday.

A walk, two groundouts and a single by Bell got Toronto a run in the first inning, but the only other hit Johnson permitted was a fifth-inning double by Kelly Gruber. Johnson retired 11 in a row at one point and got 14 outs on fly balls.

“It’s always a good feeling to pitch well and I was excited to have the opportunity, but it doesn’t mean much when you lose,” Johnson said. “Today was the last day of our season, so it doesn’t mean much now.”

Said Robinson: “He gave me all he could give me. He couldn’t give me any more. Maybe I let him face one batter too many.”

The one batter was Nelson Liriano, who walked to open the eighth with the Orioles leading, 3-1.

Left-hander Kevin Hickey replaced Johnson and walked Manny Lee, then went to a 2-and-1 count on Moseby and was replaced by Mark Williamson.

Moseby greeted Williamson with a sacrifice bunt that put the tying runs in scoring position.

Wilson bounced a single to left field to make the score 3-2. McGriff, hitless in his last 24 at-bats and with only 10 hits in his last 73, hit a single to right field to tie the score, saying later, “That made up for a whole month.”

Wilson, running on McGriff’s hit, was now on third base, and he scored when Bell, a .366 hitter with runners in scoring position, flied to deep right field, producing his second run batted in of the game and 104th of the season.

Tom Henke, who has given up only eight earned runs in 71 innings since Gaston became the manager, gained his 20th save with a flawless ninth, striking out two in his fifth appearance in six days.

“I felt great,” he said. “The way my adrenaline was pumping I couldn’t wait to get in there.”

The Orioles scored all their runs during a four-inning stint by Toronto starter Jimmy Key.

Frank Wills then pitched four shutout innings, setting up the Toronto rally and the Blue Jays’ 20th victory in their last 25 games at the SkyDome, where they will return Friday for Game 3 of the playoffs.

Erasing the choker label is one thing, but Moseby said, “Our goal is the World Series. We haven’t realized our goal yet.”