ANALYSIS : Blue Jays Are Trying to Leave Past Behind

The Toronto Blue Jays returned to Canada Wednesday night carrying a 2 1/2-game lead in the American League East, a 4-5 record during their final West Coast trip as their division’s dreaded swing team, and the always heavy baggage of previous fall folds.

The ghosts travel first class with the Blue Jays, who pay a price for their failure to hold:

--A 3-1 lead against the Kansas City Royals in the AL’s 1985 championship series.

--A 3 1/2-game lead over the Detroit Tigers with seven to play in the 1987 division race.

--A 1 1/2-game lead over the Boston Red Sox with seven to play in last year’s division race.

In and out of print, the reminders are so constant that General Manager Pat Gillick reflected on it at Anaheim Stadium Wednesday and said: “Our guys want to win this for all the obvious reasons, and they also want to win it to shut people up.

“It gets tiresome and irritating, but I suppose we have to look at it in the positive sense that people wouldn’t be talking about it if we weren’t close almost every year.”

This is the 10th consecutive year that Toronto will finish at .500 or better, the major leagues’ longest active streak, but it has turned into another haunting experience.

The Blue Jays led the third-place Red Sox by 11 1/2 games on Aug. 2. They are 26-24 since, have nine to play and are accused of hearing footsteps from the past every time they lose.

“It’s nonsense,” interim manager Gene Tenace said. “The past doesn’t enter into it. That’s just speculation by the writers. This team doesn’t have a ghost hanging over it.”

Really?

Devon White, the first batter in the first game of a trip that ended with a 7-2 victory over the Angels Wednesday, hit a drive at the Seattle Kingdome that seemed headed to Vancouver. It hit a speaker hanging from the roof and fell for a double.

White was then picked off second, setting the tone for a trip on which:

--The Blue Jays played four consecutive extra-inning games, taxing the bullpen.

--Tenace was criticized for his zealous use of the bullpen.

--Relief ace Tom Henke came down with tendinitis in his pitching arm.

--Tom Candiotti was bombed for seven runs in the first inning of his Monday night start against the Angels, who are 13th in the league in runs.

--Joe Carter dropped a fly ball to contribute to a brief Angel lead Wednesday.

No ghosts?

“I think it’s a legitimate question for the organization but unfair to the players,” veteran Jimmy Key said after pitching Wednesday’s victory. “We’ve had so many changes that the past doesn’t mean anything to most of our players because they weren’t here, they didn’t go through it.”

Maybe that’s an advantage, maybe not. Of Toronto’s regular lineup, only third baseman Kelly Gruber and catcher Pat Borders are at the positions they occupied last September. The second baseman, Roberto Alomar, and starting outfielders--Candy Maldonado, White and Carter--were elsewhere.

Unfamiliarity with the past is one thing. Unfamiliarity with the pressure of a race is another.

“I don’t think pressure is the reason we’ve stumbled and struggled in the last month,” Gillick said of this and other Septembers. “I just think we’ve had players who wanted it so much, who tried so hard, they didn’t play naturally. It’s that cliche about trying to hit a five-run home run.”

There was also a disturbing disregard for fundamentals, but Alomar and White have done much to improve execution, and if the Blue Jays hold on to win the East, Gillick, once known as Stand Pat because of his inactivity in the trade market, will have to be executive of the year in the AL.

Alomar, White and Carter, acquired in major winter deals, have emerged as most-valuable-player candidates. In-season acquisitions Maldonado and Candiotti have been comparably significant.

The 1991 Blue Jays have the speed to manufacture runs and the gloves to win with defense.

“There were many years when we simply felt that we didn’t have to make a lot of changes,” Gillick said, “but I don’t think we’d be where we are this year without Alomar, Carter and White.

“I also think we’re fortunate to be where we are considering the injuries we’ve had.”

Dave Stieb, the would-be ace, hasn’t pitched since May 22 because of a back problem. Gruber missed almost 50 games in midseason because of a broken thumb. Henke was out for six weeks at the start because of a groin pull and is out again because of his tendinitis. Left-hander Ken Dayley, a free agent signed to bolster the bullpen, has missed most of the season because of a bad elbow and an inner-ear infection.

In addition, Manager Cito Gaston has missed 33 games--the Blue Jays are 19-14 in that span--because of a herniated disk, and his return remains uncertain. The only certainty is that the Blue Jays gritted out two victories in Anaheim and now get six games at home against the Minnesota Twins and the Angels before ending the regular season at Minneapolis.

There is still a possibility that both division titles will be on the line in that last regular-season series, a byproduct of the AL’s balanced schedule that forces one Eastern team to finish its schedule against the West.

The Blue Jays are it this year. They last played Boston Aug. 12 and are in the process of playing their final 23 games against the West, a concept Gillick said he abhors. “The month of September is the month of pennant races,” he said. “The focus should be on head-to-head contests between the teams in contention. The fans are entitled to it.”

Gillick said he believes there is support in the AL for a change, but in the meantime, the Blue Jays and the Red Sox will be scoreboard-watching and keeping an eye on their respective ghosts.

Asked if he is tired of hearing about that, Key reflected on the Red Sox’s numerous failures and said: “We’re not as tired of it as the people in Boston are. They’ve been hearing it for 75 years.”