Blue Jays Walk Around Brett, Win With Oliver

KANSAS CITY —  Having taken the bat away from George Brett Saturday night, the Toronto Blue Jays were within three outs of a defeat before locating their own bats.

The successful search ended with a three-run rally in the ninth inning and a 3-1 victory over Kansas City.

It ended with ex-Dodger Al Oliver drilling a pinch two-run double off Dan Quisenberry, who was also the victim when Oliver won Game 2 with an RBI single in the 10th.

Left-hander Charlie Leibrandt, who had pitched only two-plus innings as the first-game loser, nursed a 1-0 lead into the ninth, having shut out the Blue Jays on four hits.

The ensuing rally gave Toronto a 3-1 advantage in the best-of-seven series and put the Blue Jays in position to win their first American League pennant, perhaps as early as today, when Jimmy Key faces Kansas City left-hander Danny Jackson.

How tough is the Royals’ situation?

“It will be a lot tougher if we don’t win tomorrow,” Manager Dick Howser said.

Howser, now 1-12 as a playoff manager, was certain that the series had turned around Friday night when Brett’s single, double and two homers sparked a 6-5 victory, ending Kansas City’s 10-game postseason losing streak.

The Brett performance, however, convinced Blue Jay Manager Bobby Cox and his Saturday night starter, Dave Stieb, that they couldn’t allow Brett to beat them, that they had to revert to their pre-playoff plan of pitching around him.

A crowd of 41,112 saw Brett draw a pair of intentional walks and ground out twice.

Stieb and successor Tom Henke combined to walk nine, but the Royals collected only two singles--both by Willie Wilson.

The Royals hit an enigmatic .252 during the regular season, when only the Angels hit lower.

Now, in the four games of this series, the Royals are hitting .211. Their 27 hits include 7 by Brett, who is batting .500, and six by Wilson, who is batting .469.

Steve Balboni, who slugged 36 home runs during the regular season, has 1 hit in 15 at-bats. Frank White, who hit 22 homers, is 2 for 15.

Catcher Jim Sundberg is 2 for 14, and right fielder Pat Sheridan is 1 for 11. Shortstops Buddy Biancalana and Onix Concepcion are hitless.

The weight, as always, is on Brett, who said of the Blue Jays’ intentional-walk approach: “I’m not surprised; I’m not frustrated. I mean, I saw a lot of this during the season.”

Brett drew 31 intentional walks, only two shy of Ted Williams’ league record.

He drew his first Saturday night with a runner at second and one out in the first inning.

Hal McRae then grounded out, and Sheridan flied out.

The game was still scoreless in the sixth when Lonnie Smith drew a leadoff walk and raced to third on a hit-and-run single by Wilson, who had collected the only previous Royal hit when he beat out a grounder to first in the third.

Now, with runners at first and third, no outs and Brett at bat, Cox went to the mound.

“Bobby asked me if I wanted to walk him or pitch to him,” Stieb said. “I went back to the hotel after watching Brett last night and decided that if there was a situation where he could hurt us, I’d pitch around him.

“Bobby has enough confidence in me to let me do what I want to do.”

Brett drew the intentional walk, loading the bases. Then, after getting two strikes on McRae, Stieb said he became overly cautious, not wanting to make a two-strike mistake.

McRae drew a walk, forcing in Smith and making it 1-0.

“I had to regroup at that point,” Stieb said. “I had to get into myself.”

Sheridan was next, but as Stieb said: “Here’s a guy who has an obvious weakness, who is easy to pitch to. It definitely didn’t hurt that he swung at the first pitch.”

Sheridan popped to third, then White grounded into a double play, ending the inning.

Said Stieb: “Anytime you get out of a no-out, bases-loaded situation with one run, you have to feel you’ve done a great job.”

Cox, of course, was hoping for a double play and looking to avoid a big hit from Brett.

“It worked out,” he said, “but I’m not sure it was such a good move. It probably would have made more sense with one out, but I couldn’t take a chance on Brett. The way Leibrandt was pitching, I wasn’t even sure we’d get a run. If I had to do it again tomorrow, I don’t know that I would.”

Said Brett: “Bobby Cox has seen me hit in that situation before. He knew I’d get the run in. He knew I don’t strike out or pop up very much. I’ve played 12 years and don’t ever remember being walked in a similar situation, but that’s not to say I remember everything. I was convinced we’d get more than one run out of it, but Stieb showed his colors. He didn’t give in. He turned us away. And the one run wasn’t enough.”

Said Howser: “I’ve got to like our situation even after they walk George. Bases loaded. No outs. The right guys hitting. We had a chance to break it open and didn’t. Give Stieb credit.”

The partisan fans refused to.

Stieb, who has allowed only one run and five hits in 14 innings of two playoff starts, left after consecutive walks with two outs in the seventh. He left to a taunting by fans behind the Toronto dugout and responded with an obscene gesture.

“The fans can do what they want, and so can I,” he said. “I expect some respect. That was B.S. It was a fine-pitched game on both sides. The fans should have recognized that.”

Stieb, who won the American League’s earned-run-average title at 2.48, will pitch the World Series opener for Toronto if it comes to that. This one looked as if it would come to a familiar end for the hard-luck Blue Jay ace who had been 0-3 against the Royals during the regular season, losing 2-1, 2-1 and 4-2.

Leibrandt had won that 2-0 decision and was 2-0 in four starts against the Blue Jays, a key factor in Kansas City’s left-handed dominance of Toronto.

Game 1 had represented a disappointment to the 17-game Royal winner, but he came back on three days’ rest to characteristically frustrate Toronto until issuing a leadoff walk to Damaso Garcia in the ninth.

The walk to Garcia, who has walked only 16 times in 646 at-bats this year, seemed to indicate that Leibrandt was tiring, but he was left to face the left-handed-hitting Lloyd Moseby, who responded with a double to right-center, tying the game.

Leibrandt, who lost a 1-0 decision to Detroit in last year’s playoffs, departed in favor of Quisenberry, who promptly yielded a check-swing single to George Bell, putting runners at first and third.

Oliver batted for Cliff Johnson. Howser considered an intentional walk but said he was confident that Quisenberry would induce a ground ball, as he had against Oliver at Toronto.

That grounder was hit between Brett and the shortstop, however, and drove in the winning run. This time, Quisenberry got behind 0 and 2, hung a change-up, and Oliver drilled it into the right-field corner to score the decisive runs.

“I was trying to catch him off stride,” Quisenberry said, “but I threw a bad change-up. I got it up. I didn’t get it inside enough.”

Leibrandt, whose domination of the Blue Jays was such that he set a playoff record by handling eight fielding chances himself, drew another tough October loss.

The winner was Tom Henke, who got Wilson to fly out after replacing Stieb with two on and two out in the seventh, and then, after issuing two more walks in the ninth, ended the game on a Jamie Quirk pop-out.