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1999 Project: Games 11-13

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youppi.jpgApril 16, 1999: Expos 6, Mets 4

Al Leiter entered the day seeking his first win of the year, and he left still seeking it. The lefty allowed only four hits in the first seven frames, but all four hits came in the fourth inning and resulted in four runs. Leiter limited the damage after that until the eighth, when he surrendered two more runs that put the game away for Montreal. Leiter’s counterpart, Dustin Hermanson, also gave up four hits in seven innings but held the Mets to just one run.

The Mets’ ostensible ace was done in by equal parts weather and bad luck. A one-hour-plus rain delay preceded the game; precipitation had figured so heavily in Leiter’s previous starts that John Franco dubbed him The Rain Man. He also had to deal with a weird hop on a ball hit by Michael Barrett that eluded Robin Ventura and prolonged the Expos’ four-run fourth inning.

“I’d be a little more distraught and a little more concerned if I felt I had no clue,” said a mystified Leiter (0-2). ”But my stuff is as good as it’s ever been in my career. I’m just not making that big pitch to get out of an inning. But I feel too good to get depressed about it yet.”

The Mets made a late bid to make things interesting, with one run in the eighth and two in the ninth on a Todd Pratt homer, but Expos closer/machete enthusiast Ugueth Urbina came in to get the last three outs without further incident.

Rickey Henderson hit a pinch-hit single in the eighth, then immediately asked to leave the game with a tight hamstring. After the game, he wouldn’t commit to making a start in left the following day. “I’ve got to wake up in the morning and see how it feels,” he said.

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1999 Project: Second Series

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

April 8, 1999: Expos 5, Mets 1

pitchermasks.jpgOrel Hershiser killed the Mets in the 1988 NLCS, shutting them down in three games and closing out the Dodger victory in the series-turning Game Four on 0 days’ rest. (Mike Scioscia and Kirk Gibson contributed to the slaughter.) The Mets, clearly a forgiving franchise, acquired Hershiser prior to the 1999 season. He wasn’t the record-breaking Bulldog of old, but still a eater of quality innings, the kind that any contender needs at the back end of its rotation.

This appeared to be a wise decision when Hershiser showed flashes of his old form in spring training, giving up no runs in 12 innings of work. It looked less so during his Mets debut in Montreal, when he gave up five runs and was gone after four innings. Gold Glovers Robin Ventura and Rey Ordonez both committed crucial errors, as did reacquired outfielder/professional clubhouse cancer Bobby Bonilla.

Hershisher didn’t help his own cause by getting picked off of second in the top of the third, effectively squashing a Mets rally. The sole NY offense came from a solo homer by Edgardo Alfonzo, his first of the year.

Hershiser would do some yeomanlike work for the Mets in 1999 (including three innings of vital relief work in The Grand Slam Single Game). But it’s probably games like this that Steve Phillips thinks of when he busts Hershiser’s chops during ESPN telecasts. Never mind the fact that Phillips was the GM who brought him to the team (it’s not like he was foisted on the Mets by a previous regime). And the fact that Hershiser did more in baseball than Steve Phillips could ever do in three lifetimes.

Amid rumors that the Expos might be sold and moved to the US, the Opening Day Montreal crowd was unusually large and vocal. Expos fans cheered a solid start by pitcher Miguel Batista, and the robust attendance announcement of 43,918.

Continue reading 1999 Project: Second Series