1981: 60-48 (.556), first place (second half), lost NLCS to Los Angeles The Expos failed to bring around a leadoff single in the bottom of the tenth, and in the top of the 11th, Schmidt hit a two-run home run off reliever Stan Bahnsen that clinched the division for the Phillies.ĥ. Fryman walked Pete Rose to start the inning, but retired the next two hitters, including Schmidt, on groundouts. But with two out and the speedy Bake McBride on second (having replaced Rose on a fielder's choice), Phillies catcher Bob Boone singled to tie the game. They had their ace, Rogers, ready to go on five days' rest, took an early lead, and quickly reclaimed it after the Phillies went up in the top of the seventh, handing a 4-3 lead to relief ace Woody Fryman in the top of the ninth. That made Saturday's game a must-win for Montreal. The final three games of the regular season brought the Phillies to Montreal for a series that would decide the division. Friday night's opener was a tense, 2-1 Phillies win with the winning run coming on a sixth-inning solo homer by Mike Schmidt off Expos starter Scott Sanderson. They then swept a three-game set at home against the Cardinals, but the Phillies took four straight against the Cubs to erase the half game and pull into a tie atop the division. The Expos traveled to Philadelphia that weekend and took two of three from the Phillies to reclaim first place by a half a game. 250/.308/.369 with just eight round-trippers.īy the season's penultimate weekend, the Pirates had faded. Dawson, meanwhile, hit 49 home runs and won the National League's Most Valuable Player award, an award never won by a member of the Expos, while his replacements in Montreal hit.
Unfortunately, because of their slow start without their best player, the Expos finished third behind the Cardinals and Mets, albeit just four games out of first place and with a better record than both the NL West champion Giants and eventual world champion Twins.
The Expos, starting with that May 2 game, went 83-58 the rest of the way, the best record in the National League over that stretch, one game better than the eventual pennant-winning Cardinals. 330/.429/.526 on the season with 50 stolen bases and a career-high 18 home runs. He then proceeded to go 4-for-5 with a walk, that first-inning triple, a stolen base, three runs scored, and a grand slam in the top of the tenth inning that proved to be the game-winner. Raines returned to the Expos' lineup on May 2 at Shea Stadium and tripled in his first at-bat. Nonetheless, the 1979 team kicked off a golden age of Expos baseball, drawing 2 million fans for the first of four times in team history (all of which would occur between 19, with only the 1981 strike preventing a fifth such season), and initiating a string of a dozen seasons during which the Montreal would finish below.
#MONTREAL EXPOS KLIPPED SETH MYERS SERIES#
The resilient Expos battled back, going 30-9 from August 15 to September 23 to reclaim the lead by a half-game, but they met their Waterloo in the season's penultimate series in Pittsburgh, dropping three of four to the Pirates, who went on to win the division by two games and, ultimately, the World Series. After a hot start, Montreal spent all but one day of June and July in first place, but the pitching slumped in the latter month, and the We-Are-Family Pirates surged into first place in early August. The first winning team in Expos history, the 1979 entry did far more than just eke out a winning record. Led by 25-year-old future Hall of Famers Gary Carter and Andre Dawson, a career year from third baseman Larry Parrish (.307/.357/.551, 30 HR), and the league's best pitching staff, bolstered by an offseason trade for veteran lefty Bill Lee and the signing of free-agent relief ace Elias Sosa, the 1979 Expos won 95 games, the most in the team's 36 years of existence, improving by 19 wins over 1978.
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