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It wasn鈥檛 a perfect game聽鈥� Stieb issued an uncharacteristic four walks to go with nine strikeouts in the 122-pitch outing on a Sunday afternoon at old Municipal Stadium 鈥斅燽ut it was a masterful performance nonetheless. Still the only no-hitter in Jays history.

“To be honest, I can hardly believe what I did today,” Stieb told reporters, including the Star’s Allan Ryan, at the time. “I wasn’t nervous, and no doubt being there so many times before helped.”

So many times.

While there has only been one Jays no-hitter, there could very easily have been at least five.

Brandon Morrow was one out away in 2010 when Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria snuck an infield single past a diving Aaron Hill in the hole on the right side for the Rays’ only hit. That was tough to swallow, but nothing compared to Stieb, who had been one out away on three separate occasions before closing the deal.

In each of his last two starts of 1988, Stieb hadn’t given up a hit with two out in the ninth, part of a run of three straight shutouts in which he allowed a total of six hits.

In the first of those games, a two-out grounder by Cleveland’s Julio Franco appeared to be headed right to Jays second baseman Manuel Lee.

“The ball hit a rock and bounced over (Lee’s) head,” Cito Gaston, the Jays’ manager at the time, recalled to the Star this past weekend.

That game was in Cleveland as well. The next one was at Exhibition Stadium, and Baltimore’s Jim Traber hit a little looper to very shallow right field, just out of the reach of first baseman Fred McGriff.

Incredibly, Stieb threw another one-hitter in his second start of 1989 for three in a span of four starts. There was no drama in that one, though, as catcher Jamie Quirk got the Yankees’ lone hit in the fifth inning.

Later that season, it would happen again.

Just two months into the life of the SkyDome, it was the closest any Jay has ever come to perfection. Stieb retired the first 26 Yankees on a Friday night in August before a Roberto Kelly double down the left-field line.

Jays bench coach and former Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly went 0-for-3 against Stieb in that game and doesn’t recall the right-hander pitching any better than usual.

“Kinda normal聽鈥� he’s always good, right?” Mattingly said about that night. “Being left-handed was a little better than having to face him right-handed with that slider. He always had good stuff every time out. Really one of the best in the game for a long time there.”

When Stieb did finally get it done there were 23,640 on hand, no doubt boosted by some Jays fans making the trip on the long weekend. There were only two more crowds of more than 5,200 at Cleveland’s “mistake by the lake” that season.

Those Jays followers held their breath when, with two out in the ninth, Jerry Browne hit a line drive toward right-fielder Junior F茅lix, who made an awkward catch to finish off the no-hitter.

“I knew Junior was going to catch it,” said Gaston. “Everybody was just so happy and proud for (Stieb). He’s still the best pitcher who ever pitched here. We were so happy for him.”

Max Scherzer had more no-hitters in a 3 1/2-month span than the Jays have in almost 49 seasons. In 2015 with the Washington Nationals, the right-hander threw one against the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 20, and another on the penultimate day of the season at the New York Mets that featured 17 strikeouts. The only thing between Scherzer and perfection in that second no-hitter was a throwing error by third baseman Yunel Escobar.

The future Hall of Famer understands how tough it is to close out a no-hitter.

“The ninth inning is a different animal,” Scherzer told the Star after his start in the Jays’ 8-4 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday at the Rogers Centre. “The other team knows it, they don’t want to get no-hit. They’re going up there grinding everything they can to get that one bleeding hit. It’s almost like they don’t even care to lose, they just don’t want to get no-hit.”

Three times with two out in the ninth inning, they got that one bleeding hit against David Andrew Stieb. On Sept. 2, 1990, they didn’t. And the Jays are still waiting for another one.