Northern Expos-ure

7 time 100 RBI man

With the mercury on the thermometer barely touching 50 at game time most fans expected to see a fast game with little or no hitting.  Instead, they were treated to a long drawn out 4 hour event featuring 13 combined runs and 23 combined hits.  Right off it was easy to tell that both starters were not exactly Cy Young candidates.  Cincy had the bases loaded in the first, but somehow Dan Warthen was lucky enough to get Johnny Bench to fly out weakly to center.  In the second Warthen was lucky to escape with just 1 run allowed, a Pete Rose RBI single with 2 outs.  Montreal would get to Nolan in the bottom of the second thanks to a combination of walks (3), errors (1), wild pitches (2) & some good old fashioned hitting.  Pepe Frias and Jerry White would knock in runs the conventional way, with sigles to give the Expos a 3-1 lead.  After Gary Carter narrowly missed a two run homer in the bottom of the third, Larry Parrish would line an RBI single to right to make it 4-1.  This was the high point of Montreal's day.  With Warthen on the hill it was only a matter of time before the Big Red Machine began producing their assembly line of hits and runs.  That time would come in the top of the 4th.  Rose led off the inning and flew out to the warning track.  Ken Griffey singled then stole second in the blink of an eye.  Morgan walked to put runners on 1st and 2nd with 1 out.  Foster did the same to load the bases.  "Doggie", Tony Perez, the RBI man for these great Red teams did what he does best...launch an 2 run double off the left center fence, which made it a 4-3 game.  Montreal's lead was evaporating faster than sweat in the Sahara.  Parrish booted a hard grounder by Bench to third to allow the game to be tied and a walk to Geronimo would force in another run to give the Reds a 5-4 lead.  Warthen was now gone.  He hit the showers after getting just 1 out in the 4th and blowing a 3 run lead.  Don Carrithers was brought in to relieve him and allowed all of the inherited runners to score, plus he was charged with an unearned run via Parrish's gaffe at third.  Pedro Borbon was now on the hill for the Reds, replacing Gary Nolan who was as awful as Warthen.  Borbon was in a groove pitching shutout ball until the bottom of the 7th when the Expos showed signs of life once again.  Pepe Frias led off with a single, which was followed by a single from pinch hitter extraordinaire Jose Morales.  Jerry White grounded out weakly for the first out, but he was able to move the runners up into scoring position.  After a most productive out by White, Bombo Rivera was called upon to pinch hit for Jim Dwyer.  Rivera delivered a two run double and lo and behold Le Expos were now on top by 1.  All 5,306 fans in attendance at Jarry Parc began to cheer like they had never cheered before.  Their lowly Expos were now leading the defending world champions by 1 run after 7 innings.  Montreal's lead was to be short lived.  Fred Scherman would see to that.  Montreal's lefty reliever began his day's worth of work in the top of the 8th by giving up a single to Dave Concepcion and an RBI triple to left handed hitting Cesar Geronimo.  If Sherman can't get lefties out, what good is he to this team ?  Two batters later he would serve up an RBI single to another lefty Ken Griffey, which now put the Reds on top by 1.  The Reds weren't playing around here and immediately went to their star closer Rawly Eastwick, who shut the door on the Expos with 2 scoreless innings.  Eastwick did what no other Red pitcher could do on the day, not allow an Expo run.  Montreal showed that it could hang with the big boys, but without strong pitching they won't have enough to win plus they can not count on scoring 6+ runs every game.  The Big Red Machine really is a machine !