October 21, 1992: Key locks the door, Blue Jays one win away from championship

On Wednesday evening, October 21, 1992, Torontonians could have gone to see Tom Selleck in Mr. Baseball, attended the Toronto Ski Show or hung out with Keith Richards at the Squeeze Club, but over 52,000 opted to spend the cool, wet night inside SkyDome watching Game Four of the World Series between the Blue Jays and the Atlanta Braves. The previous night’s walk-off victory had given the Jays a two-games-to-one Series lead and the crowd was eager to see them move one step closer to the championship.

Toronto manager Cito Gaston had been relying on a three-man pitching rotation in the postseason but he decided to go with Jimmy Key, considered the team’s fourth-best starter that year.1 Rosie DiManno wrote, “Gaston had a change of heart … figuring that Key’s off-speed, left-handed stuff would be a good weapon to offset the big Atlanta bats.”2 Key was rested, having pitched only five innings over the previous 22 days, but he commented that “the club knows I’m not as effective a pitcher when I do have a long layoff.”3 Atlanta’s ongoing batting slump, however, eased the pressure on Key. After three games the Braves were hitting a collective .196/.306/.239 against Toronto and, making matters worse for them, manager Bobby Cox loaded his lineup with right-handed batters to face Key. This left the team’s two hottest hitters, left-handers Deion Sanders and Sid Bream, on the bench. Key’s counterpart was Tom Glavine, who had tossed a complete-game four-hitter to beat the Jays in the Series opener.

After Winona Judd and Michelle Wright belted out the national anthems, Atlanta’s leadoff hitter, Otis Nixon, belted Key’s fourth offering for a single. Nixon was a speedster and the Jays were having trouble with the running game.4 Dave Perkins wrote, “The large stolen-base totals against the Jays … were not the fault of [catcher Pat Borders’s] throwing so much as they were a staff-wide weakness at holding runners close.”5

But the Braves hadn’t seen Key. Key’s last pickoff was in 1990, but after a strike to Jeff Blauser, he launched “a whippet throw that caught Nixon by a foot.”6 Blauser followed that with a single to center, then stole his way into scoring position. Terry Pendleton hit the next pitch on the nose, but right at shortstop Manuel Lee. The inning ended with a groundout but three of the four batters had made solid contact and concerns about Key’s rustiness seemed to have had some merit.

A single, two groundouts, and a steal put Roberto Alomar at third base in the bottom of the first but Dave Winfield was retired to end the inning. Key and Glavine settled in and each retired the side in order in the second. Key repeated the feat in the top of the third but Toronto broke through in the bottom of the inning when Borders hit a 1-and-1 pitch over the left-field fence. “It was off a changeup,” Borders said, “over the plate and thigh high. I was trying to hit it up the middle but I got good wood on it and it really carried.”7 Glavine was a bit shaky after that, giving up a one-out double and a walk, but Joe Carter’s line shot was snagged by shortstop Blauser, who flipped the ball to second baseman Mark Lemke to catch Devon White off base and kill the rally.

Key set the Braves down in order on seven pitches in the fourth and the Jays started the bottom of the frame with a walk and a single, but Glavine got out of trouble with a fly ball and a double play. Both pitchers had one-two-three fifth innings and Key got the first two batters of the sixth before Nixon ended a string of 16 consecutive outs with a line-drive single. It was for naught, however, as Blauser grounded out. The Jays rallied again when a walk and a single put runners on the corners with two out in the bottom of the sixth, but the threat ended when Candy Maldonado was called out on a 1-and-2 pitch that missed the plate by several inches.8

Key was winning the pitching battle and Glavine was showing his frustration. Steve Hummer commented, “Coming off the field … Glavine showed uncommon fire as he strode toward his bench. Loudly he told them to get it going. He was a man who had charged into one too many fights on his own; and now he was demanding support.”9 He didn’t get it in the seventh as Key shut the Braves down with only eight pitches to extend his streak to 20 of 21 batters retired since the first inning.

After the seventh-inning stretch, Kelly Gruber drew a leadoff walk and Lee’s one-out grounder moved him to second. White followed with a groundball between third and short and the aggressive Gruber headed for home. Left fielder Ron Gant’s throw was cut off and White was caught in a rundown but Gruber scored before the out was registered. Gruber didn’t know that the throw wasn’t coming home and he knocked his chin while sliding headfirst. “I saw the ball was coming right at the plate,” on-deck hitter Alomar explained, “so I told Kelly to slide. It was going to be real close, until they cut the throw.”10 Gruber, obviously shaken up, added, “I don’t remember running the bases or even getting on, I just saw stars.”11

Now trailing 2-0 the Braves were down to their last six outs. In the eighth Gant hit a leadoff double, just the team’s third extra-base hit of the Series,12 and Brian Hunter followed with a perfectly placed bunt single to put runners at the corners with nobody out. Damon Berryhill then surprised everyone by bunting at Key’s first pitch, but he popped it up for an easy out. Cox wasn’t happy: “[W]e were stealing. I don’t know what went through Damon’s mind.”13 Berryhill added, “I didn’t believe there was one (steal) on. … I was bunting on my own, I didn’t see a sign.”14

Next up was Lemke, whose sharp grounder was deflected by Key. Gruber raced by, made a barehanded grab, and retired Lemke at first as Gant scored. Gruber said, “It was do or die. I knew I had to field it barehanded. It took a good hop for me … and I was going to the base where I had to throw.”15 The play was all the more remarkable since Gruber was still groggy from his slide a few minutes earlier. “I just saw it in there,” Gruber later declared as he pointed to the video room, “I didn’t know a thing about it until I saw it on TV.”16

There were now two out but the tying run was on second and the switch-hitting Nixon was due up. He was weaker from the left side so Gaston removed Key in favor of right-hander Duane Ward.17 Key tipped his cap to a standing ovation and, as Rosie DiManno wrote, “Everyone in the park knew that this may very well have been the last they saw of Key doing his stuff … in a Blue Jay uniform. He would be a free agent at the end of the year and his five-hit, one-run performance was his swan song.”18

Jays relievers hadn’t blown a save since July 2419 and the streak looked to be intact when Ward struck Nixon out, but the ball eluded Borders and the Braves’ hopes were still alive as Nixon reached first and Hunter moved to third. Nixon immediately stole second and suddenly the go-ahead run was in scoring position. The next batter was the right-handed-hitting Blauser, who was a meek 2-for-14 to this point in the Series.20 Lefty hitters Sanders and Bream were sitting on the bench with a combined Series OPS of 1.112, but with left-hander David Wells warming up to face a pinch-hitter, Cox decided to stick with Blauser.21 The batter repaid his manager’s faith by scalding a ball down the first-base line but John Olerud was in perfect position to field the grounder and end the inning.22 “Blauser hit a bullet,” said Cox. “I still haven’t figured out why Olerud was just two, three feet off the line.”23

That would prove to be Atlanta’s last gasp. Glavine set the Jays down in order in the bottom of the eighth and Toronto closer Tom Henke finished the game with a clean ninth. At just 2 hours and 21 minutes it was “the fastest Series game in seven years.”24 No World Series contest has been played in less time in the three decades since. The Jays were now one win away from their first championship with hopes of wrapping it up at home the next day.

Sources

All statistics and play-by-play information for this game were found at Baseball-Reference.com, https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR199210210.shtml, accessed February 7, 2022.

All game logs and season and career statistics for individual players were found at their respective Baseball-Reference pages.

The full CBS broadcast of the game, with all advertisements deleted, can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiYVHqTQctU

Notes

1 Dan Diamond and Associates, Toronto Blue Jays Official 25th Anniversary Commemorative Book (Toronto: Dan Diamond and Associates, Inc., 2001), 116. “Jimmy Key is the winningest left-handed pitcher in Blue Jays history, but he was not at his best in 1992. … [H]e had been relegated to number-four starter. …”

2 Rosie DiManno, Glory Jays, Canada’s World Series Champions (Toronto: Sagamore Publishing, 1993), 276.

3 Tom Slater, “Key’s Masterful Outing Might Be Last as a Jay,” Toronto Star, October 22, 1992: C3. Key made six starts in September, all of which lasted at least six innings, the last of them on September 29. Key started Toronto’s last game of the season, on October 4, but left after pitching two innings. His only previous appearance in the 1992 postseason was three innings of relief on October 12 in Game Five of the ALCS. Other than these October 4 and 12 appearances, this start was Key’s first outing in 22 days.

4 From 1988 through 1997 Nixon averaged 50 stolen bases per season, including 41 in 1992. He finished no worse than seventh in stolen bases in his league in each of those years. His 620 career steals place him 16th on the all-time list.

5 Dave Perkins, “O Canada!,” in Major League Baseball Properties Inc., Jon Rochmis, ed., A Series for the World (San Francisco: Woodford Press, 1992), 80.

6 DiManno, 276.

7 Jim Proudfoot, “Blue Jays Going to Bat for Larry Hisle,” Toronto Star, October 22, 1992: C4. This was Borders’ first home run of 1992 off a left-handed pitcher. He had hit 13 home runs in the regular season and all of them were off right-handers. That season was uncharacteristic for Borders; in his career of 3,499 plate appearances, he hit a home run every 52.3 plate appearances off right-handed pitchers and one every 48.4 plate appearances off lefties.

8 Prentis Rogers, “Analysts Zero In on Ump’s Strike Zone,” Atlanta Constitution, October 22, 1992: E13.

9 Steve Hummer, “Braves Don’t Really Need Miracles to Carry Them Home – Just Some Hits,” Atlanta Constitution, October 22, 1992: E1.

10 Tom Slater, “Gruber’s a Knockout in Game 4 Win,” Toronto Star, October 22, 1992: C3.

11 DiManno, 277.

12 Damon Berryhill had hit a home run in Game One and Deion Sanders doubled in Game Three.

13 DiManno, 276-7.

14 Dave Perkins, “Are Cox’s Braves Simply Unlucky? Uh, Not Exactly,” Toronto Star, October 22, 1992: C2. Perkins also noted, “Since homering in Game 1, Berryhill had had 10 at-bats and struck out in seven of them.” Berryhill had 1,284 plate appearances from 1987 through 1992 with only seven sacrifices: three in 1988 and four in 1989. His most recent successful bunt had been on July 19, 1989, but he would later have one in Game Six of this series.

15 “The Inside Pitch,” Toronto Star, October 22, 1992: C2.

16 DiManno, 277.

17 Over his full career Nixon’s OPS was .663 versus right-handed pitchers and .647 versus left-handers, but in 1992 it was .620 versus righties and .812 against lefties.

18 DiManno, 278.

19 The Toronto relief corps had 10 blown saves in 1992, four by Duane Ward, three by Tom Henke, two by David Wells, and one by Pat Hentgen. Three of these were in April (19, 20, and 30), two were in May (16 and 20), two in June (2 and 28) and three in July (9, 24, and 24). Henke and Ward each had a blown save in a loss at Oakland on July 24: Ward allowed the tying run to score in the seventh inning in relief of starter David Wells, Toronto retook the lead in the top of the ninth inning and Henke allowed two runs in the bottom of the inning to lose the game.

20 Blauser had a single in 11 at-bats in the first three games of the series and was 1-for-3 to this point in Game Four. His slump extended back to the second game of the NLCS: After hitting a second-inning triple he had three hits in his last 20 at-bats of that series for an overall streak of five singles in his previous 34 at-bats, with four walks and nine strikeouts in that period.

21 Tommy Hutton, “Key Set the Tone by Nailing Nixon Right Off the Bat,” Toronto Star, October 22, 1992: C4. “Cox had Deion Sanders and Sid Bream on the bench. And there’s no way Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston is going to go to left-hander David Wells in the bullpen, even though both Sanders and Bream are left-handed hitters. With the way Ward was throwing, that would have been unlikely. So if you’re the Braves, you’re assured of the matchup you want with a right-handed pitcher against a left-handed batter.”

22 I.J. Rosenberg, “Braves: Face 3-1 Deficit After 2-1 Loss,” Atlanta Constitution, October 22, 1992: E9. “Blauser sliced a ball down the first-base line, but John Olerud went down on one knee to get it and ran to first to retire Blauser and end the inning.”

23 Dave Perkins, “Are Cox’s Braves Simply Unlucky? Uh, Not Exactly,” Toronto Star, October 22, 1992: C2. Olerud’s positioning on the play can be seen on YouTube at 1:55:37: he is to the second-base side of the first-base sliding pit, more than 15 feet off the line.

24 Brad Henderson and Gerry Hall, eds., On Top of the World, The Toronto Star’s Tribute to the ’92 Blue Jays (Toronto: Doubleday Canada Limited, 1992), 86. Game Four of the 1985 World Series lasted 2:19 and no other subsequent World Series game had lasted less than 2½ hours until this one.