After Win, Blue Jays Are One Out With Three Left

This was beyond winning ugly, a new low in the era of parody, a slapstick showdown.

Fred McGriff, the Toronto Blue Jays’ first baseman, provided the perspective after a 10-5 victory over the Boston Red Sox Sunday.

“It was a win and those things don’t have to be pretty to make you happy,” McGriff said.

Happy is being one game back of the Red Sox in the American League East compared to three back with three to play. Happy is preventing the Red Sox from clinching a tie for the division title.

The Blue Jays did it by salvaging Sunday’s series finale, assembling 19 hits off a parade of Boston pitchers in overcoming their own parade of sins.

“We didn’t play that well, but they played worse,” Toronto relief pitcher Tom Henke said of the Red Sox. “We were fortunate to score a lot of runs.”

Now the Blue Jays end the regular season with a lockout-created, three-game series in Baltimore. They have a 7-3 record against the Orioles, including 2-1 at Memorial Stadium.

The Red Sox remain at Fenway Park, playing host to the Chicago White Sox and a former Boston landmark named Carlton Fisk in a three-game series. The White Sox, at 93-66, have a better record than either the Red Sox or Blue Jays and swept a four-game series from Boston at Comiskey Park less than two weeks ago.

They are 5-4 against the Red Sox, but 0-3 in Boston, where Fisk, with 16 homers since his departure, is second to Gary Gaetti among active opposition.

Fisk, in fact, has tormented the Red Sox since leaving as a free agent. He has a .321 average, 27 homers and 64 runs batted in in 87 games against Boston.

“Carlton is a good guy to have going for us,” said Jimmy Key, Toronto’s winning pitcher Sunday. “The Red Sox definitely have the tougher team to play now.

“Chicago has a better record than either of us and they’re probably saying that they’re better than both of us. And they’ve got a point.”

Key conceded, however, that a three-game sweep against the Orioles might not be enough for the Blue Jays, that at best it might only create a one-game division playoff Thursday at the SkyDome.

At this point, however, the Blue Jays would settle for that.

“If we had lost today it would have been over,” Key said. “This division has been crazy all year, and we have to feel that maybe we’ve put a little doubt back in Boston’s mind.”

The Red Sox live with doubt, the residue of their failures in other autumns, but they applied their best cliches to Sunday’s inability to clinch a tie by sweeping the series.

“Today would have been icing on the cake,” Jody Reed said, “but we have to remember that we won two of three and that’s what we wanted to do. We’re still in the driver’s seat. If we take two out of three from Chicago, they’ve got to sweep in Baltimore (for a tie).”

Wade Boggs dismissed the sloppy nature of Sunday’s game by saying that a loss is a loss, and also dismissed the recent four-game sweep of the Red Sox in Chicago.

“The consensus among our guys is that nobody likes Comiskey Park,” he said. “It’s a bad hitters’ park. We have more confidence here and that shows in our record against them. We’re going to be loosey-goosey.”

Cynics might say that already frayed collars were beginning to tighten Sunday for both sides.

Boggs and catcher Tony Pena made errors that compounded the Blue Jays’ offensive onslaught. Shortstop Luis Rivera showed limited range when he could only deflect a pair of first-inning grounders, producing a quick Toronto lead. Left fielder Mike Greenwell made an unwise and errant throw that set up one other Toronto run.

The Blue Jays stranded 13 runners, had two others thrown out at second and third, saw Mookie Wilson mimic Greenwell with a misguided throw that set up a Boston run and watched George Bell play left field in a manner that would have made Carl Yastrzemski shudder.

The Red Sox had 10 hits, including Tom Brunansky’s fifth home run of the series, but after rebounding from a 4-1 deficit to forge a 4-4 tie in the fourth, they fell behind for good in the fifth on a tie-breaking homer by Junior Felix and a two-run single by McGriff, a grounder through the left side of the infield that Boston Manager Joe Morgan called “the luckiest hit of the day.”

Greg Harris, the Boston starter, faced 12 batters and eight reached base as he pitched 1 2/3 innings, allowing five hits and four runs. Joe Hesketh, released previously this year by the Montreal Expos and Atlanta Braves, faced 17 batters as Harris’ successor and 11 reached base, allowing eight hits and three runs in 2 2/3 innings, including the decisive hits by Felix and McGriff.

Harris, a 13-game winner as the No. 3 Boston starter and a converted reliever who had started only once in the previous two years, represents a real trouble spot for the Red Sox if they make the playoffs. He has lost his last four starts, permitting 27 hits and 19 earned runs in 16 innings.

“Every time I went to a fastball today they hit it,” he said. “If I pitch in the playoffs it will be with eight days rest and maybe that’s what it will take.”

Harris and the Red Sox, of course, hope to find out.