Blue Jays Are Hitting Their Stride

It took the Toronto Blue Jays 97 days, but Thursday night they finally forged a first-place tie with the Baltimore Orioles. Manager Cito Gaston gets some of the credit, outfielder Mookie Wilson gets the rest, but this is suddenly a team realizing its vast potential.

The Blue Jays can’t be trusted, considering their flawed history, but they’re 60-38 under Gaston and 20-9 since Wilson joined the club on Aug. 1. They completed a three-game sweep of Chicago Thursday with a 5-1 victory at the SkyDome.

The August victory total was a club record, and like the Orioles, the Blue Jays will not play the top two American League West clubs, California and Oakland, in September. The only negative is that 16 of their final 25 games are on the road.

In every area, Toronto seems prepared to mount a strong stretch run. George Bell has a 22-game hitting streak (32 for 87, .368), longest in the league this season. Fred McGriff has hit 14 of the Blue Jays’ 37 homers at the SkyDome, and he continues to lead the league with 35.

Wilson, hitting .325 as a Blue Jay, forms a potent 2-3-4 combination with Bell and McGriff. Lloyd Moseby, batting .212 with a .293 on-base percentage, is inadequate as a leadoff hitter, but the Jays have no one else. Wilson drew his first walk in 114 at-bats Wednesday.

The Toronto pitching, meanwhile, finally is rounding into form. Left-hander Jimmy Key has won three straight starts with a 1.29 ERA since coming off the 15-day disabled list with an elbow injury. Right-hander Dave Stieb has 14 wins, including three one-hitters.

Key and Stieb will combine with left-handers Mike Flanagan and John Cerutti for a formidable foursome down the stretch. Flanagan, the former Oriole, has found a friend in McGriff, who has hit 13 homers in his starts, including his last five.

Finally, Tom Henke has struck out 90 batters in 69 1-3 innings, again giving the Blue Jays a reliable bullpen stopper. Henke has at least one strikeout in 21 straight appearances. The last time he didn’t get one was on July 1.

The Blue Jays, of course, aren’t the only club threatening the Orioles. The Boston Red Sox, too, are back in the race, just four games out. They batted .334 during their recent nine-game winning streak, and their bullpen went 5-0 with a 1.62 ERA and five saves.

The bad news is, the Red Sox depart Monday for a nine-game West Coast trip. In all, they have six games left with Oakland and three with California. They also play Toronto three more times. The Orioles visit Toronto for three games the final weekend.

Manager Joe Morgan has switched to a four-man rotation using six different starters, including Dennis “Oil Can� Boyd, who is scheduled to pitch Sunday for the first time since May 7. Morgan got just seven combined innings from Eric Hetzel and Mike Smithson Monday, but the Red Sox swept a doubleheader from the Angels.

Welcome to September.

Welcome to the pennant race.

That’s Milwaukee Manager Tom Trebelhorn, who lashed out at Paul Molitor and Robin Yount during the Brewers’ 1-6 road trip to Baltimore and Toronto, which cost them 5 1/2 games in the standings.

“The boys making a million dollars have to whack the ball around,� Trebelhorn said. “That’s why they get it.� Molitor and Yount are the only Milwaukee position players earning $1 million this season.

The Brewers lost six straight before finally defeating the Blue Jays, and since then they’ve lost two of three to the Seattle Mariners. Molitor went 6 for 22 during the streak, Young 3 for 19. But Trebelhorn’s remarks angered Molitor.

“You look at our lineup,� he said. “You tell me where the pressure falls on this team, where it has been year in and year out. When we got back in the race, we got contributions from all kinds of people.

“But for how many years around here did we hear about all these offensive prospects? ... When you’ve got big holes in the lineup to fill, and when you go through an offensive drought, it’s not hard to figure.�

Speculation is rampant in Cleveland that Doc Edwards’ job is in jeopardy, but Bobby Valentine has no such worries, even though it can be argued that he hasn’t had a positive impact on the Texas Rangers.

Valentine, in his fifth season, is 353-391, including 51-57 since late April. He’s under contract through 1991, and there are no indications that the Rangers are even remotely disturbed by his performance.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if he traded places with Edwards. Fans keep flocking to see the Rangers -- the club is expected to draw 2 million for the first time -- giving Valentine security Edwards could never imagine.

In Chicago, the hot rumor this week was that the White Sox would trade catcher Carlton Fisk to the Cubs for pitchers Calvin Schiraldi and Jeff Pico and catcher Joe Girardi. Schiraldi eventually was dealt to the San Diego Padres, but never mind that.

The rumor started when a man claiming to be a reporter for the Toronto Star called TV stations in Chicago and said the deal was done. The reporter claimed he heard Blue Jays General Manager Pat Gillick talking about the deal with White Sox General Manager Larry Himes in the Toronto clubhouse Tuesday night.

Well, Himes was in Birmingham, Ala., that night, but Fisk delivered an absolute zinger when he learned of the rumor. “Are they going to retire my number?� he asked, referring to the retiring of Harold Baines’ number following his trade to Texas.

Reliever Tom Niedenfuer knows a losing streak when he sees one, and he said the Mariners’ 12-game drought was “small potatoes.� Niedenfuer, of course, was a member of the 0-21 Orioles last season.

“It’s late August,� Niedenfuer said. “We lose 12 games in a row, and we’re 21 games out. Last April, we were 15 games out before the season was three weeks old. That is a long streak.�

True, but the Mariners’ was also a beauty. At one point, they lost four straight games to pitchers with a combined four major-league victories (Mike Dyer, David West and Mark Guthrie of the Twins, and Steve Davis of the White Sox).

Add Matt Williams to the San Francisco Giants’ 1-2 punch of Kevin Mitchell and Will Clark. Williams finished August with 11 homers in 107 at-bats. He drove in more runs (22) than either Clark or Mitchell (21).

Including his time at triple-A Phoenix this season, Williams has 39 homers in 472 at-bats, a ratio of one every 12.1 at-bats. Mitchell leads the major leagues with 40 homers in 449 at-bats, one every 11.2.

For-what-it’s-worth department: The A’s have averaged 4.26 runs in 46 games with Jose Canseco, and 4.27 runs in 88 games without him. ... Speaking of the A’s, Dave Stewart went celebrity-watching at a Manhattan club this week: “I met Eddie Murphy, who knew me, and Mike Tyson, who didn’t.�

How are the Cardinals staying in contention? Just check out the performances of left-hander Joe Magrane, who is 13-1 since June 23, and first baseman Pedro Guerrero, who has driven in 91 runs, batting .414 with runners in scoring position.

Royals rookie Tom “Flash� Gordon might become the first pitcher in major-league history to win 20 games with 10 victories as a reliever and 10 as a starter. Gordon is 10-2 as a reliever, 6-3 as a starter. There have been 961 previous 20-game winners.

Juan Samuel has been a bust as the New York Mets’ leadoff man. He has struck out once every 4.9 at-bats, and he’s batting only .233 with a .298 on-base percentage. In addition, he has only 12 extra-base hits in 232 at-bats. Where have you gone, Lenny Dykstra and Wally Backman?

When the White Sox’s Ron Karkovice hit his first career grand slam to beat the Indians on Sunday, someone put a sign over his locker that said “Kevin Mitchell.� And someone put a sign on fellow catcher Carlton Fisk’s locker that said “Wally Pipp.�

Kent Hrbek weighed in as the heaviest Twin. “We need to trade for Joey Meyer,� Hrbek grumbled.

Finally, the Padres’ Jack Clark delivered on a promise that he’d hit a homer for an Easter Seals Poster Child this week. “This is a game I’ll remember, like the home run in the playoffs against the Dodgers,� he said.