Blue Jays Must Feel Like a Caged Animal
The Biosphere playoffs will be over soon, perhaps as early as tonight. They will be remembered as a noble experiment--two domes, two teams attempting to survive under pressurized, climate-controlled conditions--even though Canadian researchers are sadly reporting that the experiment has failed.
Day 4 and already one of the test subjects can’t take it anymore.
The Toronto Blue Jays want out. One more game like Saturday’s and they will have their wish. The Blue Jays blew another lead, just as they did Friday, and lost, 9-3, leaving them one loss away from blowing another American League Championship Series, just as they did in 1985 and 1989.
They are down, 3 games to 1, and creeping claustrophobia has set in. If the walls aren’t closing in, the Minnesota Twins definitely are.
The Blue Jays have forgotten how to hit, scoring only two runs in eight innings against 36-year-old Jack Morris.
The Blue Jays have forgotten how to field, with Manny Lee and Kelly Gruber throwing balls here, there and everywhere but their intended destination.
Worst of all, the Blue Jays have forgotten how to pitch. This was Saturday’s news development. For three games, Toronto pitchers had successfully bypassed the heart of the Minnesota batting order, frustrating No. 3 hitter Kirby Puckett (.250), cleanup man Kent Hrbek (.091) and RBI leader Chili Davis (.222). But Game 4 was the breakthrough that was begging to happen.
Toronto couldn’t keep losing games to Chuck Knoblauch and Mike Pagliarulo.
Puckett got the Twins started. He had Minnesota’s first hit, a first-inning infield single, and he produced Minnesota’s first run, driving a Todd Stottlemyre pitch 426 feet over the center-field fence and just below the window tables at the Skydome restaurant.
In a blur, Toronto’s 1-0 lead vanished and more Minnesota base hits appeared. Davis delivered a pair of doubles. Dan Gladden, .159 at game time, contributed three singles and two RBIs. Only the slumbering giant, Hrbek, remained in bed, going hitless in five at-bats. For the series, Hrbek is now hitting his weight at birth: .063.
“I don’t give a . . . “ Hrbek insisted as he sipped a postgame energy drink, a can of Labatt’s Blue. “I don’t care, because we’re winning ballgames. . .
“If we were down, 3 to 1, it’d be a different story. But something like that, the way we’re going now, you take with a grain of salt. Maybe tomorrow’s going to be my day.”
Patience worked for Puckett. Just two days ago, he was yesterday’s zero--castigated for his one-for-seven run in Games 1 and 2, which had Minnesotans wringing their hands over their team’s catastrophic split inside the Metrodome.
“A lot of people were talking about me,” Puckett noticed. “ ‘Oh, he’s one for seven, what’s wrong?’ I don’t worry about that, man. I work too hard for that.
“You go 1one for seven in the middle of the season and nobody notices. But in the playoffs, one for seven is a slump. Everything’s under the microscope. . .
“The job we have isn’t easy, man. I don’t think anybody off the street could come in and do this job. It’s pretty tough. You know some days it’s gonna be there and some days it’s not. And if it’s not there today, come back and try it tomorrow.”
Therein lies the essential philosophical difference between the Twins and the Blue Jays.
The Twins won a World Series in 1987 and believe that if things don’t go your way today, they will tomorrow.
The Blue Jays have lost eight of their last 10 playoff games and believe that if things don’t go their way today, things can only get worse tomorrow.
“I’m not sure they have that feeling,” Hrbek said of the Blue Jays, “but maybe their fans do. Maybe their fans are starting to think that.”
Hrbek and Puckett, veterans of the ’87 campaign, can only speak for themselves.
Hrbek: “The attitude we have is that we know what it is we have to do to win. We stay focused, do the little things right, do the job.”
Puckett: “I guess it is a good feeling. I’ve only been (to the playoffs) once and won it. No doubt about it, we believe in this clubhouse that we can find a way to win no matter what.”
Who’d have figured the Twins would be up, 3-1, with Scott Erickson and Kevin Tapani lugging ERAs of 4.50 and 5.68?
Who’d have figured the Twins would be a victory away from the World Series with Hrbek a glaring one-for-16 in the middle of the lineup?
“There’s more to this team than just one or two guys, man,” said that man Puckett. “There’s more to this team than just Herbie.
“It just so happens that Herbie’s struggling with the bat right now. So he is. Everybody else is trying to pick it up for him. That’s why there are 23 other guys on the team--to pick him up.”
Being a hefty guy, Hrbek might require all 23. But that’s the Twins: All hands on deck.
On the other deck, it’s an aimless scramble: Which way’s the exit?
Check out the Blue Jays now, while there’s still time. Nine more innings and they have a chance to check out for good.