Expos Take Two Out of Three

   The 1994 Expos returned to action by taking two out of three games at home from the Giants in three low-scoring games.
 
   The Giants edged the Expos 3-2 in the series opener.  Barry Bonds and Matt Williams hit back-to-back solo Home Runs in the top of the 1st against Pedro Martinez.  San Francisco scored again in the 4th, when Jeff Reed's RBI single cashed in Willie McGee.  The Expos countered with runs in the 5th and 7th, but were unable to put crooked numbers up against Giants' starter Bill Swift.  Mike Jackson and Rod Beck slammed the door shut to preserve the win.

   Game two was another low-scoring affair.  The Giants scored a pair in the top of the 2nd against Expos' starter Jeff Fassero on a Royce Clayton two-run shot, after the Expos had opened the scoring in their half of the 1st on a Larry Walker RBI double.   The Expos tied it up in the 6th when Walker's single scored Will Cordero from 2nd.  That was to be the last run scored by either side for the next ten innings.
   The Giants had the winning run in scoring position in the 9th, 10th, and 12th innings, but the Expos bullpen held firm.  The Giants' pen was just as effective, allowing only two baserunners from the 10th to the 14th inning.
   Finally, the Expos cracked the deadlock in their half of the 16th.  After a leadoff triple by Marquis Grissom and a walk to Moises Alou, a sacrifice fly by Walker brought home the winning run.  Tim Scott picked up the win after tossing a scoreless top of the 16th.

  Game 3 featured a near no-hitter by Expos starter Ken Hill.  The Expos could manage only one run through five innings against Giants starter Solomon Torres, A two-run shot by Sean Berry in the 7th gave some breathing room for Hill, who had allowed only a pair or runners to reach through that many innings.  Hill held the Giants hitless through 8, but gave up a two-out single to Darren Lewis in the 9th.  After walking Bonds, Hill retired Williams to record the complete game, shutout victory.

   The series win improves the Expos record to 13-10.  The Padres move into Olympic Stadium next for a three-game series.

 

Expos End West Coast Swing Losing Two of Three to Dodgers

  The 1994 Montreal Expos lost two of three to the Dodgers in Los Angeles, bringing a halt to their four-game winning streak, and bringing the 10-game road trip to an end.
   The 94 Dodgers featured some decent everyday players, but a lack of pitching kept them from dominance.  Still, their 58-56 record under legendary Tommy Lasorda was good enough to lead the NL West at the time of the strike.

   The Dodgers scored a pair of runs in their half of the bottom of the 8th to secure a 4-3 victory in Game 1.  Former Expo Delino DeShields walked to lead off the inning, and came around to score on Brett Butler's single after DeShields had stolen 2nd.  Butler himself stole second as well, and was brought home by Mike Piazza's one out single.

  The Expos scored 4 in the 2nd, and 4 more in the 5th en route to a 9-4 win over the Dodgers in Game 2.  Cliff Floyd drove in four runs with a three-run homer and a double, while Larry Walker reached safely in all five of his plate appearances, going 4-4 with three doubles, a walk, and a pair of runs scored.

  Los Angeles took the rubber match of the series, breaking a 3-3 tie in the 8th when Jose Offerman drove in Cory Snyder, who had led off the inning with a double.

  The 11-8 Expos return home to Olympic Stadium for rematches with the Giants, Padres, and Dodgers.  My next post will include up-to-date stats of the Expos pitchers and position players.


  By popular demand, here are some of the better Dodgers player cards:

Expos Sweep Padres, Extend Win Streak to 4

  The 1994 Montreal Expos swept the San Diego Padres in a two-game mini series played at Jack Murphy Stadium, pounding out 32 hits over the pair of games in defeating the Padres 16-2 and 11-1.


  In the first game of the set, Moises Alou hit a three-run home run, and Larry Walker added a two-run shot in leading Butch Henry to his first win of the season.  Will Cordero went 5-5 in the second contest and drove in 5 runs, and Pedro Martinez fanned 9 over 7 winnings to pick up his first victory.

   The 94 Padres did not have a lot going for them outside of Tony Gwynn.  They finished the abbreviated season at 47-70, six games below their Pythagorean, and finished last in National League attendance.  Gwynn did have some protection in the lineup in the form of Derek Bell, who hit .311/.354/.454 for the last place Padres.  Bell's career had more than its share of controversy, and its end was summed up beautifully by Pittsburgh columnist Mark Madden.


  The 94 Expos now head up the coast for a three game set with Los Angeles before flying home to host return engagements with the three west coast teams.

Gwynn's basic card:

 Game 2 scoresheet:

Expos Sweep the Giants!

   I'm re-creating the 1994 Montreal Expos season using Strat-O-Matic baseball - the board game version.

   Thanks to all for your comments and page views.  I had no idea that this project would be as popular as it has become.

    The 94 Expos moved to 8-6 on the season by starting their west coast road trip with a two game sweep of the Giants.

   Game 1 was a low-scoring affair that lasted 15 innings, with the Expos scoring a pair in the top of the 15th to win 3-1:

     Game two saw Kirk Rueter make his first start of the year, and held the Giants scoreless for 6 innings.  Jeff Shaw pitched a pair of scoreless innings, and John Wetteland struck out the side in the bottom of the 9th to preserve the shutout, as the Expos topped the Giants 5-0.  Barry Bonds and Matt Williams were held to a combined 2-19 for the series.  I held my breath every time they came up.

    The 94 Giants finished at 55-60, three games under their Pythagorean.  They had decent pitching, as well as Williams and Bonds in the middle of the order, but they also had a barely above replacement level supporting cast of every day players like Kurt Manwaring, Todd Benzinger, and Darren Lewis.  

   The Expos pitching is beginning to emerge as the club's strong suit.  In addition to the excellent starting rotation anchored by Martinez, Hill, and Fassero, the bullpen of Shaw, Scott, Wetteland, and Rojas is emerging as this team's strength.

   The 94 Expos headed into San Francisco on a three game losing streak, and won the final game of the series to stop a four game slide, and improve their record to 5-9.  Their 9-7 re-creation record has them sitting 4.5 games back of the Braves, who won 13 of their first 15.  

   

Two Weeks In

 Yes, I'm already falling behind.
  Playing Strat every day is enjoyable, but a grind.
  Ok, if you do the math, I haven't been playing every day, but you get the idea.
 

  I'm re-creating the 1994 Montreal Expos season using the classic board game Strat-O-Matic Baseball.  I've played a dozen games so far, and the Expos are an even 6-6 after losing 2 of 3 to Colorado.  Former Expo Andres Galaragga hit a walk-off three run homer to lead the Rockies to victory in the middle game of the series.
   The Expos road trip continues with two games in San Francisco, a pair with the Padres, and three in Los Angeles before Montreal returns home to return the favour with the west coast teams.

  I've adjusted the batting order, abandoning my earlier principles somewhat.  I had Will Cordero hit lead off over Marquis Grissom because of his superior OBP, but I've junked that for a lineup that Manager Felipe Alou used frequently in 1994:

Lansing 2b
Cordero ss
Grissom cf
Walker rf
Alou  lf
Floyd 1b
Berry 3b
Webster C

(Regular C Darrin Fletcher rolled a 20 on an injury roll in the second series, and is still out for 9 games)

  A couple of concerns have emerged already:
-the Expos have had trouble controlling the opposition running game
-defence has been a concern - the Expos have committed 21 errors already
-the bullpen has been inconsistent.
-the starters have lasted beyond the 6th inning only twice

  This team is simply too good for this small sample trend to continue, however, and I have no doubt the law of averages will win out in the end.

  I will post stats in another post, but due to a number of reader requests, here are a few players cards from that 94 set:

Larry Walker

Pedro Martinez

Andres Galaragga

Opening Day!

   The Expos took two of three from the hometown Astros in my re-creation of the 1994 Expos season using the classic simulation board game Strat-O-Matic baseball, the highlight of which was a 16 inning affair in the middle match of the three-game set.

   In the opener, the Astros scored four runs in the 5th off of Expos starter Pedro Martinez to knock him out of the game en route to a 5-3 win.

   The second match of the series was a wild one.  The Astros took an early lead in the 1st, when Luis Gonzalez' sac fly brought in James Mouton.  Darrin Fletcher tied things up the next inning with a solo Home Run.
   Starters Ken Hill and Doug Drabek traded scoreless innings after that, until Will Cordero led off the sixth with a solo shot to break the tie.  Andjuar Cedeno doubled in Ken Caminiti to knot things at 2 in the home half of the 7th.
   And we were scoreless until the 11th, when a Jeff Gardner pinch hit RBI single plated Larry Walker.  Expos reliever Tim Scott hit Jeff Bagwell to lead off the bottom half of the inning, and Bagwell came around to score on Milt Thompson's pinch hit RBI base hit.
   The Expos appeared to have put the game away in their half of the 13th, when they plated a pair of runs, thanks to Cordero's second homer of the game, and an error by Astros pitcher Todd Jones allowed Moises Alou to score.  With two out and a runner on in the home half of the inning, the Astros tied the game once again on a Home Run by Caminiti.
   The game stayed deadlocked until the 16th, when a three-run shot by Alou put the Expos ahead to stay, 8-5.  Gil Heredia pitched two scoreless innings to record the win, while Darryl Kile took the loss for the Astros.
   A total of 44 players were used in the game, 15 of them pitchers.  I admit to some over-managing on the Astros behalf, when I played the match up game in the 9th, and used 4 relievers, forcing me to use Kile when the bullpen was empty.

   I did not have Pitcher's Hitting Cards before I started this project, so I downloaded some and printed them, simply referring to the sheet when I needed to.  With all the double-switches I had to use in this game, it was very difficult to remember when the pitcher's spot in the order came up, so I will have to photocopy some onto some card stock so that I can keep them in the lineup.

   The third game was a more tame affair, with the Expos winning        .  A huge blow came in the   7th inning, when Fletcher was hit by a pitch, and was knocked out of the lineup for 15 games.

   I made a lineup tweak after the 2nd game.  I have said previously that I preferred Cordero over Marquis Grissom for the leadoff spot, feeling that the former's higher OBP would play better there, and with the hitters coming up behind him, stolen bases would not be crucial, and the latter's speed might be better suited to the bottom of the lineup, where his speed might get him into scoring position ahead of the weaker hitters in that part of the lineup.  I had Grissom hitting 7th, behind Fletcher, but for Game 3, I moved switched the pair.
   As I played this series, I wondered why the Astros, with that lineup, might far in a 94 simulation of their own.  Houston finished 66-49 in the shortened season, good enough for 2nd in the NL Central. It would appear that starting pitching was an issue, with only Drabek having a decent season.  With a middle of the batting order featuring Craig Biggio, Bagwell, Gonzalez, and Caminiti, they could put a lot of runs on the board, and they rode the strength of that offence for much of the season, and were only a half game back of the Reds when the strike ended play on August 11th.

  In real life, the Expos also took two of three of that opening series.  After the Astros won the opener, solid starting performances by Hill and Kirk Rueter gave Montreal the series win.  Next up is the Cubs back in the cozy confines of Olympic Stadium.   The pitching matchups will be:

Game 1 - Rueter vs Steve Traschel
Game 2 - Martinez vs Anthony Young
Game 3 - Hill vs Jose Guzman

Spring Training!

   Please forgive the chicken-scratching above.  I have drawn up a nice scoresheet on Excel, but didn't want to waste it on a spring training game.

   I'm re-creating the 1994 Montreal Expos season using the classic board game Strat-O-Matic Baseball, and blogging about it as I go.  I, like many Expos fans, was devastated when the 94 season was cancelled, and have always wondered "what if" the strike had never happened.  This is a journey with that team, a journey into what might have been.
   I grew up an avid Strat player, but have not played in some time.  The last set I owned was the 1986 season, which still sits in a Creemore Springs Brewery box in my basement.  Actually, the box came up this weekend, as I needed the strategey and fielding charts.  I discovered that the ballpark effect chart had been nibbled on by a family of mice that set up housekeeping in my basement, so I had to download a new one from the Web - I would have needed to anyway, since mine was 30 years old, and many of the parks on it are no longer in existence.
   I also downloaded Pitcher's Hitting Cards as well.  The Internet is a wonderful thing.
   I'm playing the Advanced version, but I'm not sure that I'm up for the Super Advanced one.  I'm still mulling that one over.  Many people have suggested that I play the computer version of Strat, but the cards and dice is what I group up with - there's something about rolling the dice, shuffling through the cards, and keeping score yourself that is comforting to me.

   I played a pair of games between the Expos and the other team of my youth, the Blue Jays.  Game one was a home game for the Jays, so we used the DH.  Cycling through the Toronto lineup, it's easy to see why they would not have repeated as World Series champs, strike or no strike.  Their pitching was highly suspect, both starters and relievers, and once you got past the front line guys, it was a pencil-thin lineup of position players.  The Jays failed to re-tool after their 1993 win - the farm system had not produced a great deal in several years, and some of the top talent had been traded (Steve Karsay, Jeff Kent) in deals to bolster the team for pennant runs.  The cupboard was becoming quite empty, and when you combine the indifferent ownership of Belgian conglomerate Interbrew (who inherited the team after acquiring its original owners, Labbatt Brewing Company of Canada), it's no surprise that a decade of lousy baseball ensued.
   I've stated that I'm going to use some tactics from my study of baseball analytics, and I incorporated them into these games.  As you can see, I have Will Cordero leading off, and Marquis Grissom hitting 7th. Cordero had a superior on-base percentage, and Grissom's speed would be better suited to the bottom of the lineup - yes, stealing 2nd would likely mean that the opposition would walk Mike Lansing (of course, I'm the opposition manager), but I still think having a guy who gets on base and doesn't steal a lot of bases in the lead off spot is better than the reverse.  And on this occasion, I think the results bear witness to that - Cordero got on base three times in this first game, scoring a run in the 1st, and driving in what proved to be the winning run in the 8th.  Roberto Alomar led off the bottom of the 1st with a Home Run, and stole a base later - his speed was a major factor in the game.
   One strategy that didn't work out was bringing in Expos Closer John Wetteland into the game in the 8th inning.  With the Expos ahead by 5, it wasn't a save situation, but with the heart of the Toronto order coming up, I thought it was wise to turn things over to the usually lights-out Wetteland.  The plan backfired, as Ed Sprague hit a three-run Homer.  Wetteland got out of the inning, and Mel Rojas came in to get the Save in the 9th.  As the late Earl Weaver would say,

If I send Terry Crowley in with the bases loaded to hit for Mark Belanger and Crowley strikes out, that's not a mistake.  Or if I bring in Tippy Martinez to face Graig Nettles and Nettles homers, that's not a mistake.  Those are moves that didn't work.  There's nothing to aplogize about.

  I don't think this experience will deter me from doing the same thing again in a similar situation.  To me, it makes more sense to bring Wetteland in to face the 2/3/4 hitters in the 8th, and not the 5/6/7 (or lower) hitters in the 9th for the sake of a Save.

  In the second game, Joe Carter's 9th inning Grand Slam assured a 10-5 victory.   Alomar led the way with four runs scored, and stole a pair of bases, showing that Expos C Darrin Fletcher's arm may be a bit of a concern throughout the year. Installed in the #2 spot in the order for this game, Paul Molitor was 4-5 with a walk.  Not to beat my own analytic drum, but this had to be a huge factor in the Jays' win.  I chose Alomar over Devon White to lead off for the same reasons I chose Cordero over Grissom, and even though it's a small sample size, it's hard to argue with the results.  Then again, the Cordero-Moises Alou combo at the top of the order didn't do a whole lot in this game.

   I used the pitcher's fatigue point in these games, and even though no starter reached that point, it did become a factor in both games.  The ballpark effect chart also came into play several times in the second game, as potential Home Runs became lineouts to 2nd.  I downloaded the weather effect chart, but I'm not sure how much I'll use it - if any Strat players reading this would like to convince me that I should consider using it, please feel free to let me know.  I also could not find what an upside down clear triangle means, nor could I figure out how to use it.  Again, please inform me if you know.  I also did not use the pitcher's ability to hold runners on, and will have to figure out how to use this, or the opposition may steal everything but Fletcher's shinguards this year.  I started Jeff Fassero in the 2nd game, and in hindsight he may have helped to limit the running game a bit if I had used that element.

   When the regular season starts next week, I will make every attempt to look up the pitching matchups on baseball reference for each series and use them, to try to keep the simulation as real as I can.  I don't think I will look up injuries for the other teams as I go, and I realize that may put the Expos at a disadvantage - they will have to face the other team's best lineup day in and day out.  I may consider using back up Catchers in day games after night games, though.  Pitching matchups go out the window, of course, after August 11th, and I think that I will try to cycle through each team's rotation after that, so that the Expos will face the pitchers they likely would have faced.

   Having the dice and cards in my hand, hunched over my makeshift scorecard on my desk, it was just like my youth - except for the Jays spring training game I was streaming on my tablet.
   I wonder if I would have had any clue what that meant 30 years ago.
   I am truly looking forward to this endeavour.  It felt good to be playing Strat again, and living with the 94 Expos for part of an afternoon.