Longtime Blue Jays pitcher Jim Clancy dead at 69

Jim Clancy, who made his Major League debut during the Toronto Blue Jays' 1977 expansion season and spent 12 seasons with the club as a key member of its starting rotation, has died at 69.

TORONTO – Jim Clancy, who made his Major League debut during the Toronto Blue Jays’ 1977 expansion season and spent 12 seasons with the club as a key member of its starting rotation, has died at 69.

The Blue Jays confirmed Clancy’s death in a social media post Monday. A cause of death was not given.

Clancy was selected by the Blue Jays sixth overall in the 1976 MLB expansion draft and made his big-league debut on July 26, 1977, against the Texas Rangers at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium. He surrendered five earned runs over two innings in a 14-0 loss.

After going 4-9 in Toronto’s expansion year, Clancy played his first full season in 1978, posting a respectable 10-12 record on a team that finished last in the American League East at 59-102.

Clancy, along with star pitcher Dave Stieb, provided the bedrock for the Blue Jays’ starting rotation as the team became increasingly competitive. He was Toronto’s opening-day starter in 1981 and 1984.

He had a 16-14 record with a 3.71 earned-run average and 139 strikeouts in his 1982 all-star season as the Blue Jays finished out of last place in the AL East for the first time with a 78-84 record.

He went 9-6 with a 3.78 ERA in 1985 as the Jays won the division for the first time before falling in seven games to the Kansas City Royals in the AL Championship Series.

Clancy signed with the Houston Astros after a disappointing 1988 season in Toronto, where he had an 11-13 record and 4.49 ERA as the Blue Jays failed to return to the playoffs for a third straight season.