BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Toronto’s ‘Black Jack’ Loses Shell Game With Atlanta

He has been the ultimate money pitcher. His bank account proves it and so do his credentials.

It can be speculated, in fact, that when the Toronto Blue Jays guaranteed Jack Morris $10.9 million for two years as a free agent last winter, they were thinking he would be the starter in the game that would enable them to win their first World Series.

After all, didn’t Morris have a 7-1 career record in the postseason? Wasn’t he 4-0 in the World Series with a 1.54 earned-run average? Didn’t he win two of three World Series starts as a member of the Minnesota Twins last season, pitching 10 shutout innings in the 1-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves in Game 7?

The Blue Jay hopes of last winter became a reality Thursday night. Morris faced the Braves in Game 5 of the World Series with a chance to end it. That was all that would become a reality.

Pitching for two different teams in two different countries a year apart, Morris authored two radically different results.

In his final start of a postseason in which the ultimate money pitcher has performed more on the order of chump change, Morris was shelled by the Braves on their way to a 7-2 victory that sent this Series back to Atlanta with Toronto leading, 3-2.

David Cone will start Game 6 for the Blue Jays on Saturday night. Juan Guzman will go in Game 7 Sunday, providing it’s necessary.

Toronto’s concerns about the two starts by Morris in the American League playoffs against the Oakland Athletics prompted manager Cito Gaston to use a four-man rotation in the Series, restricting Morris to two starts and depriving him of the Game 7 assignment he would have received in any other October.

“Black Jack” got his chance in Game 5 and proved again that this isn’t any other October. He was ripped for nine hits and seven runs in 4 2/3 innings, including Lonnie Smith’s decisive grand slam.

A year after dominating the Braves in the ’91 World Series, Morris gave up 13 hits and 10 earned runs in the 10 2/3 innings of his two starts in the current Series, both losses.

In four postseason starts this season, Morris was 0-3, riddled for 24 hits and 19 earned runs in 23 innings, a 7.43 earned-run average.

At his locker Thursday night, patiently answering the same questions over and over, Morris said: “You can write what you want, you can second-guess all you want, but I feel like I’ve contributed as much as anyone in this room to where we are. I have no reason to hang my head. If we win it all, I’ll be just as happy as if I had pitched as well as I have in the past.”

Morris pitched well enough to win 21 games during the regular season. Some might say those 240 2/3 innings by a 37-year-old pitcher in his 16th season took a toll in the postseason, but Morris was 12-3 in the second half, indicating otherwise.

Morris agreed with Gaston’s view that it was strictly a matter of location, of getting away with mistakes in the regular season that he was made to pay for in the postseason. The fastball to Smith, for example, was up and away, but not quite as much as he had hoped. There were also two doubles by Terry Pendleton and another by Otis Nixon that hit the baselines.

Morris forced a smile and said that a humbling game forces you “to suck it up at times.” He said he wasn’t making excuses, he obviously didn’t pitch well. He acknowledged that it isn’t easy to accept, but there is always more to it than a line in the box score and that some of his Series problems may have stemmed from Atlanta’s familiarity with him in the wake of last year.

Many in a crowd of 52,268 didn’t seem interested in that. Morris was asked about the boos that accompanied his departure after the grand slam.

He said the fans were only venting frustration, and added:

“They wanted us to win it here and so did we. I’ve been booed before. If I took every boo personally, I’d have quit 16 or 17 years ago. My sister even booed me in Little League. I mean, the fans have to learn to take everything that comes their way. It’s frustrating that we have go to to Atlanta, but we’re still in the driver’s seat. We’ll be back in a few days and party then.”

But asked if he recognized that this was the time the Blue Jays had expected him to be at his best, Morris said:

“If that was all they signed me for, I’d have shown up on Oct. 1 and not worked so hard all year. Getting here (to the postseason) is the toughest part.

“I mean, it’s easier accepting the way I’ve pitched (in the postseason) than if I had pitched this way in the middle of a pennant race and cost my team the pennant. The guys picked me up in the playoffs and I’m confident they can do it again now.”

Cone and Guzman will get the assignments. And the winningest pitcher of the ‘80s? The ultimate money pitcher? “It’s time for a skirt and pompons,” Morris said. “It’s time to be a cheerleader.”