Northern Expos-ure

April 15, 1976
Larry Christenson vs Woodie Fryman
Expos 6, Phillies 1

Another sub 50 degree day seemed to favor one pitcher, Woodie Fryman.  The "Wood-man" posted his second consecutive masterful performance of this young season.  After shutting the Mets out in Flushing Fryman now had to try his hand at keeping a much more potent lineup at bay.  After a shaky first two innings Fryman settled into a nice groove.  In the first he walked Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski with 2 out and had to make a quality pitch to get Maddox to pop out to short.  In the second Bob Boone hit one to the warning track that Nate Colbert corralled. Fryman gave up a clean single to Bobby Tolan with 2 out then suffered the indignity of handing a two bagger to his opposite number Larry Christenson to give the Phils a 1-0 lead.  The cold weather helped Fryman in the second, because Boone's long fly to left most likely would have been a round tripper in the heat of the summer.  While the weather seemed to help Fryman, it had the opposite effect on Christenson.  The bottom of the 3rd looked to be one of those pedestrian innings that you don't give much thought to.  Tim Foli led off with a single, then moved to second on Bombo Rivera's grounder to short.  Fryman bunted Foli over to third and gave himself up for the second out of the inning.  This is when the inning took a turn for the bizarre.  Christenson couldn't get a good grip on the ball and lost his control.  Jerry White and Mike Jorgensen both walked to load the bases.  The count went to 3-0 on the next batter, Larry Parrish, so Christenson was forced to put one straight down Broadway.  Parrish lined it right back through the box to score Foli and White to make it 2-1.  Gary Carter followed that with a single of his own to score "Jorgy".  Nate Colbert's blast hit the top of the fence to plate two and on the play to the plate the big man cruised into third.  Light hitting Pete Mackanin topped it off with an RBI single to make it 6-1.  Philly had a chance to make it a 2 run game when Luzinksi got a hold of one in the 5th and drove Colbert to the wall.  With Bowa and Cash on base ahead of him, Luzinski narrowly missed a 3 run homer.  As the innings pased the temperture began to drop even further.  Ball hitting bat became almost painful for the batsman.  Fryman left the game to a standing ovation after recording the first out in the 8th.  He gave way to Joe Kerrigan, who showed no mercy on the hitters and began busting them inside.  On cold days like this one nothing hurts a batter more than a "jam job".  Kerrigan ended the 8th by jamming pinch hitter Ollie Brown and getting an easy around the horn 5-4-3 DP.  In the 9th he struck out the side (Boone, Tolan, McCarver) to lock the game down.  Phightin's manager Hayes said, "Can you tell we mailed that inning in ?"  Hard to blame the hitters for wanting to get out of the frigid ice box call Jarry Parc.  The 'Spos split the series with the Phils, but their game 1 loss looks to be a foreshadowing of just how this season might go.

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