Forget about revenge. Alex Fernandez knows he deserved to be on the American League All-Star team. His teammates know it. And just about everybody who has watched a baseball game this season knows it.
So it wasn’t vengeance that motivated Fernandez to taunt and torture the Toronto Blue Jays with a four-hit, complete-game masterpiece that gave the Sox a 2-1 victory Tuesday night.
It was just pure, sweet competitiveness.
“Honestly, no,” Fernandez said when asked the obvious-whether he had an added incentive to humble the Jays because Toronto manager Cito Gaston had left him off the All-Star team.
“The incentive I pitched to was beating the defending world champions-a great ballclub. I knew everybody would asked me about the All-Star Game, but I’ve said it before: Cito had a tough job. I know that. I deserved to be on the All-Star team, but I understand what happened.”
The Blue Jays, however, are having trouble understanding anything when Fernandez pitches against them.
With Tuesday night’s victory, Fernandez (12-4) lowered his career earned-run average against the Jays to an almost incomprehensible 1.58. In five career starts against them at Comiskey Park, Fernandez is even more amazing. He is 3-0 with a 1.18 ERA.
“I don’t know why I match up so well against them, because they’ve got so many great hitters,” said Fernandez. “It’s just one of those things. We have guys who match up well against us, and we can’t explain it.”
Forget about the reason. Look at the results. The only two runs the Blue Jays have managed off Fernandez in the last 16 innings have come on solo homers-one by Roberto Alomar in a 5-2 Sox victory July 7 in the Skydome and one in the second inning of Tuesday night’s game by John Olerud, baseball’s present wonder child.
Olerud crushed an 0-1 pitch over the right-field wall with one out in the second inning for his 18th homer of the year. That’s a career high, but it was one short of what the Blue Jays needed Tuesday night.
A two-run homer by Frank Thomas in the sixth inning trumped Olerud’s blast and accounted for all the runs off Jays starter Juan Guzman.
The victory was the sixth in the last seven games for the Sox, who maintained their two-game lead over the Texas Rangers in the AL West.
The lone Sox loss in the last seven games was Monday night, when the Jays mauled them 15-7. All the pitching that was missing from that game showed up Tuesday night.
Fernandez never allowed two runners on base in the same inning all night. Besides Olerud’s homer, the only hits he gave up were singles to Ed Sprague, Paul Molitor and Randy Knorr.
Just as important, and impressive, was that he walked none in getting the 12th complete game of his career-his third of the season.
Guzman (7-3) was nearly as good. He allowed six hits in eight innings, walked just three and struck out six.
“That is what baseball is all about,” said Fernandez, who is unbeaten in his last six decisions and is 7-1 since May 1.
“Some people like to see 15-run games. But for me, personally, that is what a baseball game should be: great pitching, great defense and clutch hitting.”
Thomas’ 22nd homer of the year was his fourth against the Jays in 10 games. Three of those four have come at Comiskey Park.
With 22 homers in 92 games, Thomas is ahead of the pace Ron Kittle set in 1983 when he hit 35 and just behind Dick Allen’s pace in 1972, when he hit 37, the club record tied in ’85 by Carlton Fisk.
From first pitch to last Tuesday night, Fernandez was impressive. But never more so than in the ninth inning when he retired three All-Stars in succession, with another one waiting on deck. And he was clinging to a one-run lead at the time.
Fernandez got Roberto Alomar to fly to center, Paul Molitor to strike out and Joe Carter to pop to short right.
“A pitcher can’t go 100 percent on every pitch or he’ll blow himself out,” said Fernandez. “But in the ninth, I had a little extra to give, and I gave it.”
That he did. And when Ellis Burks hauled in Carter’s flyball for the final out-and left Olerud standing on deck-Fernandez allowed himself a moment of celebration. He punched his fist below his waist and shouted.
Nothing to do with vengeance, mind you. Just a little joy.
———-
Next: Vs. Toronto, Wednesday, 7:35 p.m., SportsChannel
