Jays Down Phils in Opener, 8-5

A frustrated Curt Schilling trudged into the dugout, clutching his black glove in one hand and his lucky red cap in the other. He was leaving midway through the seventh inning because there was one thing he couldn't hold. A lead.

The Phillies had three leads in the first five innings last night, but Schilling couldn't maintain them. And, once in front, Toronto fattened up on David West to score an 8-5 victory in Game 1 of this 90th World Series.

Schilling, MVP of the National League championship series, walked Rickey Henderson to start the first, and his rhythm, unlike his lost Phillies cap, was never discovered. He permitted seven runs in 6 1/3 innings, squandering leads of 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3, as the American League champions delighted most of the 52,011 fans in SkyDome's artificial atmosphere.

"I was terrible," Schilling said. "You score four runs off a pitcher like Juan Guzman, it should be enough to win. But I couldn't get them out. "

Phils manager Jim Fregosi had a quick and easy assessment of the franchise's first World Series game in a decade.

"If you're going to get the ball up and over the plate, they're going to hit it," he said.

"He (Schilling) was not as good as he was in his last two outings," Fregosi said. "He got some split-fingers hit. His fastball wasn't good enough. "

Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston said his first meaningful look at the Phillies' spunk impressed him. "They don't quit," he said. "You could see that tonight. But neither do we. "

Gaston likened the Phils' offense to that of Cleveland, a sixth-place AL team.

If that's the case, maybe the National League really is as inferior as some American Leaguers believe.

In Game 2 tonight of this second International Series, the Phillies will start Terry Mulholland against Toronto's Dave Stewart.

Fregosi probably had other clubs in mind when asked to discuss the Toronto order.

"That's a tough lineup to get through," Fregosi said.

A sixth-inning home run by John Olerud, the trim and clean-cut antithesis of the more earthy Phillies, put the defending-champion Jays ahead to stay. An RBI double by Devon White off West in the seventh and a subsequent two-run double by Roberto Alomar finished the Phils, who lost a fifth consecutive Series game. White also homered in the fifth.

West, who permitted the two game-breaking doubles to the only hitters he faced, has allowed four hits, four walks and four runs in three World Series appearances without recording a single out.

"He's an important part of our staff," Fregosi said. "His last time out, he threw the ball extremely well. Tonight he just did not make good pitches. "

For the Phillies, the 3-hour, 27-minute Series opener began its descent into a rout in the top of the sixth when, with the score 4-4, three Philadelphia singles and a walk couldn't generate a run.

Kevin Stocker stumbled rounding third on Mariano Duncan's third hit, a two- out single, and there the rookie stayed as winning pitcher Al Leiter struck out Kruk on a 3-2 pitch.

"I just made a good pitch in that spot, right on the corner and down," Leiter said.

Was the Blue Jays reliever nervous at all in the game's pivotal moment?

"I tried not to be," he said. "I kept telling myself I was at Clearwater and this was a spring game to try to stay calm out there. "

Two RBI singles by John Kruk, one by Darren Daulton and a wild pitch had given the Phils four runs off wild starter Juan Guzman, who left after 120 pitches and five innings. "Control was the big problem with him tonight," Gaston said. "That and a couple of pitches that he thought were strikes. "

But Leiter, a lefthander mentioned as a possible Game 4 starter, shut them out for 2 2/3 innings to get the victory. Nasty closer Duane Ward finished up.

"I thought we came into the game with an excellent game plan," Fregosi said. "We were patient and we forced Gusman to throw an awful lot of pitches. But Leiter came in and did a hell of a job for them. "

Game 1 began as expected, with patient Phillies hitters refraining from many of Guzman's quick-breaking sliders and rising fastballs. They forced the Jays' hard-throwing righthander into 35 first-inning pitches, and though Guzman did strike out the side, the Phils took a 2-0 lead.

Lenny Dykstra, privately enjoying this duel with Henderson, walked to begin the game and stole second easily. Kruk's two-strike single scored him with the game's first run. Dave Hollins walked and Daulton then punched an RBI single to right. Joe Carter's error on the play allowed Hollins to reach third, but Guzman fanned Jim Eisenreich and DH Ricky Jordan.

This World Series figures to be an offensive one, and Carter and Olerud singled on down-and-away pitches to begin the second. A third conseutive single, by Paul Molitor, made it 2-1. Daulton's passed ball allowed the runners to move up a base each and Tony Fernandez's grounder to Duncan tied the game, 2-2.

Kruk, whose girth and grooming habits have been the favorite targets of Toronto's newspapers, knocked in a second run in the third. Duncan singled and, verifying Philadelphia's scouting reports on the Jays' inability to hold runners close, stole second. Kruk's single just past a diving Alomar put the Phils up, 3-2.

White led off the bottom of the third with a drive to deep left-center. Dykstra and Milt Thompson chased, the leftfielder apparently not hearing the centerfielder's calls. The ball arrived just as their paths intersected. It kicked off Thompson's glove and rolled to the wall for a three-base error on the leftfielder. Carter's sacrifice fly tied the game again.

Alomar turned in the Series' first sensational defensive play, ranging into the area behind first base to snare Dykstra's looping fifth-inning popup with a turf-scraping dive. Duncan followed with a triple that caromed off the top of the left-centerfield wall. With Kruk at bat and the infield up, Duncan scurried home on a wild pitch and the Phils had another lead, 4-3.

Guzman had thrown 120 pitches through five and after the inning, Gaston replaced him with lefthander Leiter. However, Schilling wasn't his National League championship series self and again permitted the Jays to tie the game quickly, this time on White's 390-foot homer in the fifth.

It is not easy to collect three hits and a walk and not score, but Philadelphia managed that in the sixth. Thompson's double-play grounder and Kruk's strikeout with the bases loaded kept the Phils off the board.

Olerud clubbed a one-out homer inside the right-field foul screen to give the Blue Jays their first lead of this long night, 5-4.