Here's what everyone remembers about the 1988 Blue Jays.

They remember that the Jays lost the last seven games of the 1987 season, allowing the Tigers to win the division. They remember that the team tried to shift McGriff and Fielder to first, George Bell to DH and Moseby to left field, so that Silvestre Campusano could take over in centerfield. They remember that Bell didn't like it, that it caused dissension on the team, and that this would contribute to Jimy Williams's firing a year later. They might remember that Bell hit three home runs against the Royals on opening day. They certainly remember that the Jays didn't win the division that year, but were somewhere vaguely near the top of the standings, and they certainly remember that Dave Stieb pitched two one-hitters in his last two starts of the season, with both hits coming with two outs in the ninth.

And if that's all they remember, they don't remember the best part.

The summer of 1988 had been a blistering hot one. I was a teenager in Cornwall, Ontario at the start of the summer. We moved to Scarborough in September, but before we could do that, we had to spend a month living in a different house in Cornwall, without all of our stuff, which was in storage. And in this house, we had no air-conditioning. I remember sweating a lot that summer, lying around torpidly in a strange house with nothing to do, listening on the radio to the hapless exploits of a Blue Jays team who couldn’t seem to even approach .500.

On August 31st, the Jays lost to the Brewers to drop their record to 65-68, in fifth place, one game ahead of the Indians. Here, I’ll show the whole standings:

Det 75-57
Bos 73-59
NYY 69-62
Mil 69-67
Tor 65-68
Cle 64-69
Bal 46-86

Up to that point, the story of the ’88 season had been the Tigers and Red Sox. Neither team was exceptionally strong that year, but they had been fighting valiantly for first place. The Tigers were trying to defend their divisional title, and the Red Sox (who had been to the Series in ’86) were trying to knock them off. Boston fired their manager, John McNamara, in midseason, and replaced him with Joe “The Other Joe Morgan” Morgan.

September first, in retrospect, looks like a turning point for the 1988 AL East. Not for everyone; Baltimore had been horrible all year and finished horribly. Cleveland had been mediocre all year and finished mediocrely.

Milwaukee had a very strong September. They started off the month with five straight wins, bringing themselves up to the level of the Yankees, and kept gaining ground throughout the month. Detroit, on the other hand, spent the first two weeks in free-fall, going 2-12 and dropping to the level of the Yankees. The Brewers, Tigers and Yankees managed to track each others’ records pretty closely after that, though; after September 9th, the three teams would never be more than two games apart in the standings, and usually closer.

While Detroit was falling, the Red Sox were rising. They started off the month by going 12-5, putting themselves six games ahead of the Detroit/Milwaukee/New York trio (and eight and a half ahead of Toronto) on September 18th. From this secure position, they played .500 ball for a week, and then lost six of seven in their last week. But by that time, it hardly mattered; there wasn’t time to catch them.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays were putting on the jets.

They won their first six games before dropping one, then won one more after an off-day. They lost three games in a row against Baltimore and Detroit, bringing them back down to .500 on September 12th. That would be the last time in 1988 they would not have a winning record; it would be the last time in 1988 they would lose consecutive games. Toronto’s record for the rest of the month would be 15-3, including a six-game winning streak to end the year.

Here’s what the September/October standings looked like:

Tor 22-7
Mil 18-8 2.5 GBL
NYY 16-14 6.5 GBL
Bos 16-14 6.5 GBL
Cle 14-15 8 GBL
Det 13-17 9.5 GBL
Bal 8-21 14 GBL

Depending on just how you’re counting, it’s the best month the Blue Jays have ever played.

It made the year-end standings look like this:

Bos 89-73
Det 88-74 1 GBL
Tor 87-75 2 GBL
Mil 87-75 2 GBL
NYY 85-76 3.5 GBL
Cle 78-84 11 GBL
Bal 54-107 34.5 GBL

It’s tempting to look at all the ground the Jays made up and say, if only the season had gone on a week or two longer, or if only they had been able to win this game or that game, they could have nosed out the Red Sox. And I was halfway expecting to write such a thing here. But I mapped out the progress of September for the top five teams in the division on some graph paper, and really I can’t support such a flight of fancy. First, the standings are only as close as they are because Boston took the last week off; if the race had been tighter, they would likely have played better. Second, there were three other teams in the same boat as Toronto, all of which were also playing strong baseball in the last half of the month. The Jays were doing well just to join that group; it would have been a tall order to leave them all behind.

I don’t want to diminish their accomplishments. Remember: before the month started, they were floundering below .500 with the Indians, apparently going nowhere. After the month ended, they were twelve games over .500, tied for third place and two games out of first. The Brewers started September with a two-and-a-half game lead on Toronto, and went 18-8 in September… and the Jays caught them. The Yankees had a five game lead on the Jays, and had a winning record in September… and the Jays passed them. It was wonderful baseball.

How’d they do it? I looked at the hitters’ numbers for that September, and… didn’t notice anything, really. Some of the Jays hitters had a good September, and some didn’t. The team’s offensive numbers for the month weren’t that different from their overall numbers that year. Still, here are some standouts (in increasing order of importance):

In 39 at bats Nelson Liriano hit .405/.436/.459.
In 40 at bats Rob Ducey hit .406/.462/.562.
In 77 at bats Rance Mulliniks hit .293/.413/.448.
In 96 at bats Ernie Whitt hit .253/.368/.506.
In 121 at bats Fred McGriff hit .274/.347/.453.
In 126 at bats George Bell hit .294/.317/.496.
And, in 130 at bats, Tony Fernandez hit .308/.377/.453, giving support for the notion that, “as Fernandez goes, so go the Blue Jays,” an idea which was in common currency at the time.

Anyway, some guys were hitting well, but others (Gruber, Barfield, Moseby) really weren’t, and overall it wasn’t an unusually good month for the offense.

So how’d they do it?

They did it with great starting pitching.

The rotation had been plagued by injuries earlier in the year, but by September the Jays had five guys all ready to go, all clicking along at maximum efficiency, and all ready to go on a hot streak. The five were:

Jimmy Key, who led the league in ERA in 1987, coming back from a midseason injury
Dave Stieb, onetime Jays ace, in his comeback season after a terrible 1986 and ordinary 1987
Jim Clancy, longtime Toronto rotation fixture
Jeff Musselman, young lefty soft-tosser who had stood out in relief in his rookie season in ’87, but who had been hurt in ‘88
Mike Flanagan, veteran lefthander, in his first full season with the Jays since coming over from Baltimore at the end of ‘87

(Note: at one point in the season, John Cerutti was in the rotation instead of Clancy. With Key, Musselman and Flanagan, that made four lefthanders along with righthander Stieb. By September, Cerutti was back in the bullpen.)

And here’s how they all did in September of 1988:

Key: 4-1, 3.51 (6 starts)
Stieb: 4-0, 1.50 (6 starts)
Clancy: 3-0, 3.86 (6 starts)
Musselman: 3-2, 4.11 (6 starts)
Flanagan: 2-1, 3.34 (5 starts)

Total: 16-4, 3.17 (29 starts)

That’s like having a Cy Young Award winner going for you every day.

Let’s look at some games.

Sept. 1: Rangers (60-71) at Blue Jays (65-68). Oddibe McDowell scraped out a run against Jimmy Key in the third, but that was all Key would give up over eight innings; the Rangers had another little rally in the seventh but it didn’t go anywhere. The Jays scored three in the fourth off Charlie Hough and could have had more except Rick Leach got thrown out trying to advance from second to third on Gruber’s single to left; wonder how that happened. Ernie Whitt had a home run and a double; Henke pitched the ninth without event. Jays 5, Rangers 1.

Sept 5: Blue Jays (69-68) at Tigers (75-61). The Tigers had lost five in a row coming into the game, but were only one game out of first place. The Jays were still in fifth, but only six-and-a-half out. Fred Lynn’s first-inning homer off Mike Flanagan put the Tigers ahead, but the Jays scored three on Tony Fernandez’s bases-loaded double off Jack Morris right away. The Tigers tied it off Flanagan in the fifth and the Jays and Tigers both scored single runs in the sixth. Flanagan finally left the premises after allowing a couple of baserunners in the seventh, but Todd Stottlemyre restored order with a double-play ball. Things stayed like that until Whitt’s home run off Willie Hernandez in the tenth, and Duane Ward got the save. Jays 5, Tigers 4.

Sept. 12: Tigers (76-67) at Blue Jays (72-71). One week later, the Tigers and Jays had both fallen a little farther back in the race, and Frank Tanana and Jimmy Key were renewing their acquaintance of the previous October. Both teams scored a run early, and three more later on; it was tied going into the eighth. Henke allowed a leadoff walk to score in the eighth and a home run to Lynn in the ninth, but a rally by the Jays in the ninth came up just short. Keys to the loss: the intentional walk to Trammell just before Lemon’s homer in the sixth; the Jays’ inability to get a big hit with men on in the fourth, eighth or ninth; Henke’s ineffectiveness. Tigers 6, Jays 5.

Sept. 13: Tigers (77-67) at Blue Jays (72-72). The Jays put an end to their last losing streak of the year by pounding on Ted Power and the Detroit bullpen for nine runs. Jesse Barfield had a grand slam and Dave Stieb was suitably competent through seven. Jays 9, Tigers 1.

Sept. 20: Red Sox (85-65) at Blue Jays (78-73). Jeff Musselman versus Roger Clemens. The Red Sox pummeled Musselman and a selection of scrapings from the Toronto bullpen for thirteen runs. Roger Clemens was himself. Worst loss of the month for the Jays: Red Sox 13, Jays 2.

Sept. 21: Red Sox (86-65) at Blue Jays (78-74). But the Jays bounced back. Wes Gardner threw a fine game for the Red Sox; in six-plus innings only giving up a single run off a triple and a sac fly. Mike Flanagan was even better, not allowing a runner past first in eight innings. Jays 1, Red Sox 0.

Sept. 24: Blue Jays (80-74) at Indians (72-81). The Jays got a walk in the first but didn’t score. They got three straight two-out singles in the second and only got Jesse Barfield thrown out at home to end the inning. They got a walk in the third and a single in the sixth but didn’t score. They got a single, a sac bunt and a single in the seventh but only got McGriff thrown out at home. They got a single and a walk in the eighth but didn’t score. Finally, in the ninth, they scored a run when another single-sac-bunt-single combination set up Rob Ducey’s sac fly. And that was enough to win it, because that was also the evening that Dave Stieb no-hit the Indians over eight and two-thirds innings before Julio Franco singled to centre. Jays 1, Indians 0.

Sept. 26: Blue Jays (81-75) at Red Sox (88-67). Jeff Musselman’s revenge. Musselman shut out the Sox for seven innings while the Jays hitters were smonching Wes Gardner and the Boston bullpen with seventeen hits. Toronto’s most lopsided win of the month. Jays 11, Red Sox 1.

Sept. 27: Blue Jays (82-75) at Red Sox (88-68). The Jays jumped out to a 9-0 lead after two innings, thanks to a grand slam and another homer by Whitt. They’d need it all, though, as Flanagan and David Wells didn’t bring their A-games. The Jays’ hitters added six more runs along the way, with more heroics from Whitt, and eventually the Red Sox ran out of time. Jays 15, Red Sox 9.

Sept. 28: Blue Jays (83-75) at Red Sox (88-69). Rob Ducey walked to lead off the eighth against Bruce Hurst, stole second, went to third on an error, and scored an unearned run when Kelly Gruber hit a fly ball. That was all Hurst would give up, but it would be enough to convert Jimmy Key’s two-hit shutout to a win. Jays 1, Red Sox 0.

(That is, if you’re counting, three 1-0 wins in eight days.)

Sept. 30: Orioles (54-104) at Blue Jays (84-75). Fernandez and Gruber went triple-single to lead off the game, and while those two would produce three more runs with a similar act in the fifth, it wouldn’t be necessary. All the Orioles would get off Stieb would be a bloop single to right with two out in the ninth, Stieb’s second consecutive almost-no-hitter. Jays 4, Orioles 0.

Oct. 2: Orioles (54-107) at Blue Jays (86-75). Coming into the game, the Jays had won five in a row to finally make it into fourth place, with only one game still ahead of them. They wasted no time in putting the game out of reach, scoring seven runs off a young Curt Schilling in the first two innings (Schilling’s first year in the majors. He was 0-3). Bell would add some insurance with a home run in the fourth, but the Orioles were never going to come back from that anyway. They scratched out a few runs in the sixth and seventh against Musselman and Eichhorn but the outcome was never in doubt. By the end of the day, the Jays were in third place. Jays 9, Orioles 3.

When we remember them, let’s remember them like this.

(Thanks to baseball-reference.com for all the info.)