October 3, 1992: Blue Jays claim second consecutive AL East title

A crowd of 50,412 rabid fans packed Toronto’s SkyDome on Saturday, October 3, 1992, in the hope of watching the hometown nine clinch the American League East title for the second consecutive year and the third time in four seasons.

However, by the time the game against the division archrival Detroit Tigers began, the division crown already belonged to the Blue Jays as the second-place Milwaukee Brewers had been eliminated via a loss to the Oakland A’s earlier that afternoon.

Nonetheless, the Jays players wanted a victory for themselves and their fans. After Toronto had indeed triumphed, 13-game winner Jimmy Key noted, “It’s more fun this way. I didn’t want Milwaukee to lose it. I wanted us to win it.”1

Key, a nine-year veteran who had spent his entire career with the Jays, knew what this game and this season meant to a Toronto franchise that had the “chokers” label applied to it due to its inglorious postseason history and an ignominious fade down the stretch that cost it a division title in 1987. He had been a member of the 99-win squad that had squandered a 3-games-to-1 ALCS lead to the Kansas City Royals in 1985, which was the closest Toronto had come to the World Series; the 1989 and 1991 teams both had lost in five games to Oakland and Minnesota respectively.

General manager Pat Gillick had set about to obtain the missing pieces that might finally get the Jays over the hump to the World Series. On December 18, 1991, he signed Jack Morris, that season’s World Series MVP, who had pitched an epic 10-inning shutout victory for the Minnesota Twins in Game Seven. Morris had also won a title with the Tigers in 1984 and owned a 7-1 postseason record, including a 4-0 ledger in the two World Series. The 37-year-old righty logged 240⅔ innings for Toronto in 1992 and won 21 games, which tied him for the AL lead with the Texas Rangers’ Kevin Brown.

The very next day, Gillick signed Dave Winfield to be Toronto’s designated hitter. The free-agent slugger was coming off a subpar season – by his Hall of Fame standards – for the California Angels in which he had batted .262 with a .326 on-base percentage and 86 RBIs. Winfield rewarded Gillick’s confidence in him with a .290 BA, .377 OBP, and 108 RBIs that netted him the Designated Hitter of the Year award and a fifth-place finish in the AL MVP vote.

Gillick still had work to do, though, as the season began to take its toll on Toronto’s pitching staff. In early August, longtime ace Dave Stieb suffered a season-ending injury. Second-year starter Juan Guzmán, who had won 11 of his first 12 decisions and was 11-2 with an AL-leading 2.11 ERA at the All-Star break, also spent most of that month on the disabled list.2 On August 27 Gillick traded rookie third baseman Jeff Kent and minor-league outfielder Ryan Thompson to the New York Mets for David Cone, who was 13-7 with a 2.88 ERA and was tied with Tom Glavine for the NL lead in shutouts with five. Cone pitched to an even better 2.55 ERA in eight appearances (seven starts) for Toronto, though he was saddled with a hard-luck 4-3 record for his efforts.

Cone was a great insurance policy and Morris provided hard-nosed veteran leadership, but it was Guzmán – who had come off the DL on August 30 – who took the mound for the Jays to try to tame the Tigers and claim the division with a victory rather than back into the postseason via Milwaukee’s loss. Guzmán was fired up and firing on all cylinders as he pitched four perfect innings, striking out seven batters, before allowing Detroit’s first baserunner, in the top of the fifth.

The Blue Jays offense struck quickly in the bottom of the first inning against Detroit starter Dave Haas. Devon White stroked a leadoff single past the reach of Tigers shortstop Travis Fryman. After Roberto Alomar lined out, Joe Carter launched a homer that gave Toronto a 2-0 advantage. Haas set Winfield down on strikes and retired John Olerud on a comebacker to the mound, but the Jays already had all the runs they needed on this day.

Haas allowed two Toronto baserunners in the second and one in the third, but the Jays were unable to push additional men across the plate. All was quiet until the top of the fifth when Guzmán’s shot at a perfect game ended as he surrendered walks to the first two batters, Cecil Fielder and Mickey Tettleton. After Rob Deer struck out swinging, Scott Livingstone hit a grounder that forced Tettleton at second but enabled Fielder to advance to third. Guzmán then got Dan Gladden to swing at strike three for Detroit’s final out of the inning. Eight of the nine Tigers batters Guzmán struck out went down flailing at his offerings, prompting the Jays righty to exclaim after the game, “I’ve prayed for this day. I haven’t pitched like this since before [he was injured].”3

In the bottom of the fifth, Haas ran into trouble when he walked Manny Lee and White dropped a bunt down the third-base line that resulted in a base hit. Alomar followed with a sacrifice that advanced both runners. Tigers skipper Sparky Anderson had Haas issue a free pass to Carter to load the bases. Winfield hit a grounder to Fryman that forced Carter at second, but Lee scored Toronto’s third run of the game. After Haas issued his second unintentional walk of the inning, to Olerud, Anderson sent Mark Leiter to the hill in relief. Leiter kept the Jays from putting up a crooked number in the inning by striking out Candy Maldonado.

Guzmán lost his no-hitter in the top of the sixth when designated hitter Mark Carreon led off the frame with a solid single into right field. It was the only hit Guzmán allowed this day, and he retired the next three batters in order. In fact, Guzmán allowed only one additional baserunner in his final two innings of work – Carreon, who drew a two-out walk in the top of the eighth.

The Jays tried to manufacture an insurance run in the bottom of the seventh. Alomar worked a leadoff walk and stole second. After Leiter retired Carter on a fly ball to left field, he was replaced by lefty Mike Muñoz. With Winfield batting, Alomar stole third. Muñoz was ordered to walk Winfield, and he then induced an inning-ending double-play grounder off the bat of Olerud.

Although Guzmán had shown no signs of tiring and pitch counts were still a thing of the future – Guzmán had thrown 117 pitches, 77 of which were strikes – Toronto manager Cito Gaston opted to bring in closer Tom Henke for the ninth inning. It turned out to be a good thing that the Jays were no longer in a must-win situation as the ghost of shortcomings past attempted to haunt Henke and the Jays once more.

After Lou Whitaker hit a weak groundout to Olerud at first base, Fryman and Fielder banged out back-to-back singles; Skeeter Barnes ran for Fielder. When one of Henke’s pitches got past catcher Pat Borders, who was charged with a passed ball, the Tigers had two runners in scoring position. Henke dug his hole deeper by walking Tettleton unintentionally to load the bases. After Deer popped out, Henke forced in a run with another base on balls, this time to Livingstone. Gaston replaced Henke with Duane Ward, who induced a pop fly from Gladden on his second pitch to end the game as a 3-1 victory.

Winfield, one of Toronto’s key offseason acquisitions, had been in the visiting dugout as a member of the Angels when the Jays had clinched the AL East title in 1991.4 This time around, he was able to celebrate being part of a division champion on his 41st birthday. The crowd helped him to celebrate by singing “Happy Birthday” which Winfield said was “really nice, it was great” as he had never had 50,000-plus people serenade him with birthday wishes before.5

Henke, who had almost allowed the Tigers to rain on Toronto’s championship and Winfield’s birthday celebrations, summed up the Jays’ new attitude after the game:

“People have labelled us chokers and I know [Milwaukee manager Phil] Garner said a couple of times ‘We’ll get them, we know their reputation,’ and this and that,” Henke said. “Hey, we stayed focused and won the games. We didn’t count on anybody else to help us out, we went out and did it ourselves. Now we need to win eight more games.”6

The Blue Jays did exactly that, defeating Oakland in the ALCS and the Atlanta Braves in the World Series – both in six games – to become World Series champions for the first time in franchise history.

Sources

The author consulted baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org for the box score and play-by-play of the game as well as player statistics, awards, and transactions.

Notes

1 Larry Millson, “Half a Pennant Old Hat for Veterans/Players Who Have Been There Want to Progress to Champs,” Globe and Mail (Toronto), October 5, 1992: D2.

2 Malcolm Allen, “Juan Guzmán,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/juan-guzman/, accessed March 18, 2022.

3 Tom Gage, “Jays Down Tigers to Wrap Up East,” Detroit Free Press, October 4, 1992: 5E.

4 Neil A. Campbell, “Players Leave the Noisy Celebrations for the Real Pennant,” Globe and Mail, October 3, 1992: A22.

5 Millson, “Half a Pennant Old Hat for Veterans.”

6 Millson.