Paul Molitor knows how to win on baseball’s biggest stage.

The St. Paul, Minn., native signed a three-year contract with the Toronto Blue Jays ahead of the 1993 season after a terrific career with the Milwaukee Brewers.

Toronto was fresh off winning its first World Series in franchise history in 1992 and Molitor, 36 at the time, put together the best season of his career during the Blue Jays’ title defence in ‘93.

Molitor hit .332 with 22 home runs and 111 RBIs alongside a .911 OPS and a 5.6 WAR over 160 games as the Blue Jays finished with a 95-67 record to clinch the American League East divisional title.

Molitor finish second in AL MVP voting behind Frank Thomas, star slugger for the Chicago White Sox, Toronto’s opponent in the American League Championship Series.

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Now 69, Molitor says the crowd atmosphere during the Blue Jays’ postseason run this Fall has sparked memories of 1993 which concluded with Joe Carter’s famous walk-off home run in Game 6 of the World Series to eliminate the Philadelphia Phillies and clinch their second straight league title.

“The playoffs were a lot different back then. We had to fight our way through the Chicago White Sox and Bo Jackson and that team they had. Then, of course, the World Series we were playing quite an interesting group in the Philadelphia Phillies, they just had a lot of characters on that team,” Molitor told TSN 1050’s First Up on Wednesday morning. “But to have a chance to win it in Toronto at the SkyDome, the crowds were incredible and watching these games over the past couple weeks, it’s just flooded back memories of what it was like and the reactions from the crowd throughout that postseason.”

George Springer’s dramatic seventh-inning homer in Game 7 against the Settle Mariners also reminded Molitor of Carter’s historic moment.

“Literally I got goosebumps just because his reaction looked somewhat similar to Joe [Carter] running down the first-base line,” he said.

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Carter was the hero, but if not for Molitor’s performance during the entire 1993 World Series, the Jays might not have repeated.

Molitor, who was on base for Carter’s longball, was named World Series MVP after hitting .500 with two home runs, eight RBIs and 10 runs scored over the six games.

Thirty-two years later, Jays slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is putting together an even better postseason run, maybe the best a Toronto athlete has every accomplished.

Guerrero Jr. is hitting .442 with six home runs and 12 RBIs alongside an incredible 1.440 OPS over 11 postseason contests. Not to mention striking out only three times in 51 plate appearances. He was named ALCS MVP on Monday night for his efforts.

“He’s just locked in. You can tell by his aggressiveness early in counts,” explained Molitor. “He swings tremendously hard and yet somehow doesn’t swing and miss very often. The small amount of strikeouts and consistent hard contact, I don’t know how many balls he’s hit over 100mph. He almost handcuffed the left fielder the other night which you just hardly ever see. It’s been impressive.”

Despite giving up four home runs this postseason, Molitor has been impressed by hard-throwing relief pitcher Louis Varland.

“Out of all the players the Twins traded at the deadline, I think I was most surprised that we let Louie go,” said Molitor, who served as manager of the Twins from 2015-2018.

Despite being underdogs against Shohei Ohtani and the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, Molitor says he likes the Jays’ chances if they can continue to make L.A.’s starters work deep into their pitch counts.

“This is going to be a heck of series. I know a lot of people are projecting the Dodgers to be a somewhat heavy favourite, but when you get into these games, so many things can happen,” said Molitor. “The Jays are going to have their hands full with the starting rotation of the Dodgers, no doubt about that. The one thing the Brewers couldn’t do, they didn’t extend a lot of at-bats against their starters. You got to find a way to really challenge those guys early and try to get their pitch counts up. You might not score a lot, but when you’re in the fifth or sixth inning, you’re looking at getting into that Dodgers bullpen which is maybe the most vulnerable part of their roster.”

The Dodgers have already announced Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto will start in the opening two games of the series while Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani are likely to be on the mound for Game 3 and 4 back in Los Angeles.

Game 1 goes Friday night in Toronto.