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Road warriors Current trip could determine the season for vagabond ExposPosted: Tuesday June 03, 2003 12:51 PM
No team carries more baggage than those unloved wards of baseball, the Montreal Expos. We're not just talking the psychological weight of playing the American pastime in a French-speaking province that doesn't want the team. We're talking hardware here, not software. The Expos are the Sultans of Samsonite. "My wife and I packed three suitcases between the two of us," catcher Michael Barrett said Sunday, when the Expos' North American Tour stopped in Philadelphia. "That's usually what I have for the whole season. And that doesn't include the stuff you pick up on the road to get by." The Expos are on a trip neither Willie Loman nor Willie Nelson could love. In a span of 26 days they travel from Montreal to Miami to Philadelphia to San Juan to Seattle to Oakland to Pittsburgh and back to Montreal. For those of you scoring at home, that's seven cities, 22 games, two leagues, two countries, one U.S. commonwealth and way too many mints on their pillows. On the plus side, they won't have to make their own beds until June 20, when they play their next game in Montreal. The Expos left home last week 32-18 and only two games behind Atlanta in the National League East. They began play Tuesday 1-6 on the trip and 4 1/2 games out. It's a make-or-break road swing only if Montreal stumbles horribly. And, as if a trip with a hardbound itinerary weren't enough, the Expos have to slog through it without three of their starting pitchers -- Orlando Hernandez, Tony Armas Jr. and Zach Day are all on the disabled list -- and with outfielder Vladimir Guerrero nursing a back strain that kept him out of the Philadelphia series this past weekend. The Expos were swept by the Phillies, including a doubleheader loss Sunday in which Montreal managed only eight hits combined. "It's way too early," Expos manager Frank Robinson said about the trip's impact on his club's season. "There's a lot of baseball left after that." Actually, the Expos will return home with only half the season plus eight games remaining -- that's a total of 89 games. "There's plenty of time to recover," Robinson said. "If you do come out of the stretch with one positive, it's a boost to your confidence knowing you don't have those games to play now." Not even Bud Selig knows where the Expos will be playing next season, though a repeat of their Montreal/San Juan arrangement seems more likely with each day that passes without a commitment to Washington, Virginia or Portland. That outcome is irrelevant to how they play this season, however. Their players are too busy getting through the everyday grind of baseball to worry about the business side of baseball. Twenty-five percent or more of major leaguers will switch home teams next year, anyway. It's the way the game is. What strains the Expos, though, is the cumulative effect of the vagabond nature of their season. By June 20, they will have spent 125 days together, including spring training, but spent only 12 of them in Montreal. Yes, they can say they are accustomed to uncertainty and people not wanting them, but, as Robinson said, "The one thing that is not good about this [season] is that you don't get a chance to get into a routine anywhere. As long as we have something to play for it won't be a distraction." That's why this trip, and how the club performs in the four weeks following all that travel, are critical. Montreal, when healthy, has enough talent to challenge for a playoff spot. But if the wear and tear of the next six weeks and the fallout from injuries pulls them down, the Expos could become a seller at the trading deadline and their season could unravel from there. The Expos are a middle-of-the-pack offensive team that doesn't have much home run power outside of Guerrero. They have stayed on the shirttails of Atlanta because of an efficient pitching staff that had at the start of this week walked the fewest batters and posted the best ERA in the NL, with the exception of the Dodgers' pitchers. What has hurt Montreal recently, however, is a breakdown on defense. The Expos lost a game in Philadelphia because shortstop Orlando Cabrera dropped a toss that could have made for an inning-ending double play and because left fielder Jose Macias dropped a very catchable line drive, turning it into a two-run, game-breaking double. The defense has undermined Montreal. "It's as simple as that," Robinson said. "I don't know what has happened to our defense ... It just goes to show you if we pitch and play good defense we can win ballgames." In San Juan, where they went 6-4 in April, the Expos believe they have a homefield advantage, though Texas, their opponent this weekend, played there last season against Toronto. "At first I didn't like the idea," Barrett said of the San Juan games, "but as I began to understand why they're doing it, it makes sense to me. It's allowed us to get a little more revenue and maybe keep the team together more than it would have been otherwise. And now I feel like in the long run we have a homefield advantage there. We know how the park plays, and that's an advantage over teams coming there for the first time." "Plus," Robinson said, "we get to bat last." Still, the Expos will be spending another week in hotel rooms for these "home" games. Their only routine is no routine at all. There is a team in the independent Atlantic League that plays its entire season on the road. The aptly named Pennsylvania Road Warriors are by far the worst team in their league. For 26 days, the Expos will be the Road Warriors of the major leagues. Off to a 1-6 start, they need to go 10-5 the rest of the way against the Angels, Rangers, Mariners, Athletics and Pirates just to manage a .500 record on the odyssey. The North American Tour only gets more difficult from here. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers baseball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send a question to his Mailbag.
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