25-year Marliniversary: Fish score 10 unanswered to stun Expos in 6-run comeback

[Mike Ferguson]

Throughout their 34-year history, the Florida/Miami Marlins have twice rallied from seven runs down to win a game. On this day 25 years ago, however, the Florida Marlins completed their biggest comeback…in Canada.

Against the Montreal Expos, the Marlins' first game following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center was on Sept. 17, 2001. The Marlins stunned the small, home crowd with 10 unanswered runs to erase a six-run deficit. Eight of those runs came in the sixth inning as Florida rallied for a 10-6 victory.

It was scoreless halfway through the contest at Olympic Stadium. The Expos changed that in the bottom of the fifth with six runs. Few would have guessed that Montreal would have been behind the next time it came to bat.

After an RBI triple from Montreal’s Peter Bergeron got the scoring started in the bottom of the fifth, Tim Raines and José Vidro came through with RBI singles to make it 3-0. Orlando Cabrera then doubled the lead with a bases-clearing double.

During the big fifth inning, however, Expos starting pitcher Javier Vázquez was hit in the head by a pitch and forced to leave the game. Through five innings, the Marlins had managed just two hits against Vázquez. Britt Reames came in to pitch in relief for the Expos to open the sixth inning and left without ever recording an out.

Florida opened the frame with seven straight hits. After Derrek Lee and Cliff Floyd each singled, Preston Wilson drove them home with a two-run double. He’d later come around to score as Mike Lowell doubled on the 10th pitch of the at-bat against Reames.

With the score now 6-3, Kevin Millar and Charles Johnson kept the hit parade going with consecutive doubles. Johnson’s double to left plated two and just like that, the Marlins were within a run with the tying run on second and nobody out. Guillermo Mota was called on to relieve Reames, but he also struggled.

Following an Álex González bunt single, Mota was able to get Andy Fox to fly out for the first out of the inning. Luis Castillo followed by giving the Marlins the lead with a two-run triple. Up 7-6, Castillo came around to score on Lee’s RBI single to increase the lead to two.

Mota was relieved by Joey Eischen, who finally stopped the bleeding by striking out Floyd and Wilson. After eight runs and nine hits, the top of the sixth finally ended. The offense, however, was able to carry the momentum into the seventh.

Vladimir Núñez worked a 1-2-3 bottom of the sixth inning for Florida on the mound. At the plate, the Marlins added two more runs in the seventh. Millar doubled home Lowell before scoring on González’s RBI single.

Núñez threw three scoreless innings of relief. Juan Acevedo closed it out by facing the minimum in the ninth for the Marlins. Despite throwing just two pitches, culminating in a double play to end a disastrous fifth inning, Ricky Bones picked up the win for the Marlins.

The Marlins finished with 18 hits, including 16 over the final four innings. González led the team with four knocks, followed by Floyd’s three. Lee, Wilson, Lowell, Millar and Johnson each added two hits. Vidro and Geoff Blum each finished with two hits for the Expos.

The eight runs in the sixth and the six-run comeback each tied team records for the Marlins at the time. They came north of the border on this day a quarter-century ago.

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