Post by dougiejays on Feb 22, 2022 2:26:41 GMT -5
Ten years.
Seven playoff appearances.
Six division titles.
Two Cy Young Award winners.
And zero championships.
That’s the slate facing the Blue Jays going into 1998. The team hasn’t had a losing season since going 77-85 way back in 1987, back when Barry Bonds was still a rookie and Bull Durham hadn’t even hit theatres yet. In that time span, they’ve never notched fewer than 92 wins, and even after just barely missing out on the playoffs in two of the last three years, they’ve still advanced to October in 7 of the past 9 seasons.
But in all that time, postseason success has remained elusive. The squad is 4-8 all-time in postseason series and has been eliminated in the first round four times. A sole World Series appearance came from an upstart 1989 team that had to win a play-in game just to make the playoffs before upsetting the favoured Yanks, but they quickly fell in the Series, and throughout the ‘90s the Jays have never so much as sniffed a Fall Classic, even as the roster has changed over almost completely and kept right on winning. One of the few mainstays has been staff ace Kevin Brown – and he’s 3-12 all-time in 16 postseason starts. It just seems like when the going gets tough, the bats fall silent, the good pitchers get beat, the bullpen falls apart…
But maybe Roger Clemens can change all that.
The burly right-hander, recently acquired from the Boston Red Sox as they take a torch to the overpriced squad that just edged out the Jays for the division last year, finally provides the Jays the bona fide third ace that they’ve been looking for ever since – well, ever. In every playoff series since 1990, Toronto has handed the ball off to Jeff Russell and Kevin Brown for Games 1 and 2 and prayed against hope that whatever third-rate pitcher they threw out in Game 3 wasn’t going to get his tires blown off, and more often than not he has. It’s almost a rite of passage at this point.
Clemens, however, is no pushover. A three-time All-Star as well as the owner of a team-leading 234 career wins and a 2.81 career ERA, he can stack up his career accomplishments next to either of Toronto’s erstwhile Cy Young winners. Like Brown, he’s also had his share of playoff jitters – an 0-3 record in six career playoff starts is hardly inspiring – but like Brown, his raw numbers indicate a pitcher who’s been outdone far more by tough luck and good competition than by any fault of his own – Clemens’s playoff ERA is 3.33 in 46 innings, while Brown has somehow racked up all those losses despite a 2.78 mark in 120 innings.
In theory, getting back to the playoffs this year should be no great obstacle. In addition to picking up Clemens, the Jays also nabbed Scott Brosius from the Tigers to fill a need at utility infielder opened up by the departure of Ken Caminiti in the expansion draft, and it has been widely reported in the media (though not officially confirmed on social media by any of the teams involved) that there are a couple more deals processing which will in effect swap out super-utility speedster Randy Velarde for outfielder Darryl Hamilton, who would likely slot in as the team’s starting left fielder. Combined with Clemens and the late-season acquisitions of Cecil Fielder, Jim Neidlinger and Roger Pavlik which spurred the team to make a last-minute run at the division last season, these peripheral moves promise to bolster a roster that’s ready to reclaim its familiar spot atop the AL East.
And by all appearances, the division is ripe for the taking. Along with Clemens, the Red Sox jettisoned just about anyone with a pulse as they complete their once-a-decade race to the bottom in order to pay off their creditors and gain draft position. Third-place Baltimore won 89 games a year ago, but they lost power-hitting stud Henry A. Rodriguez to FA and have so far only replaced him with a couple of solid relievers. Over in New York, the Yankees are coming off a 100-loss season and while they’ve made some aggressive moves to get better – most notably remaking their rotation with the acquisitions of Morris Madden, Kevin Hagen, and John Hope as well as picking up power-hitting catcher Greg Myers – it’s hard to imagine a full-scale turnaround. Meanwhile, while fledgling Tampa Bay drafted their squad aggressively and figure to be more competitive than your typical expansion team, they likely lack the firepower to become true contenders right off the bat.
After a decade of success, Toronto’s core is clearly aging and with a number of studs coming up for free agency after the season – including Clemens and Brown, as well as power-hitting third baseman Gary Sheffield – and the team running a deficit, it seems entirely possible that a window that’s been lurking in everyone’s peripheral vision for several seasons might finally be closing.
But can The Rocket take them out on a championship high?
