NYPL Vermont Lake Monsters

Vermont Expos Collect First Road Win

July 15, 2003 - New York-Penn League (NYPL)
Vermont Lake Monsters News Release


TROY, NY --- Vermont walked all the way to its first road victory of the season as the Expos recieved a club record 16 base on balls to beat the Tri-City ValleyCats 7-3 in New York-Penn League action Tuesday night at Bruno Stadium.

Oscar Bernazard, who walked in each of his five plate appearances and has walked in seven straight at bats overall, led off the second inning with a walk and scored later in the inning on a groundout for a 1-0 Expos lead.

Vermont would fall behind 3-1 when, with two outs and no one on in the bottom of the second, the ValleyCats put four straight singles together to score two runs and added a third run on a fielding error by third baseman Franklyn Jimenez.

But the Expos got one of those runs back in the third inning when Doug Vroman walked with the bases loaded to score Salomon Manriquez, who had singled earlier in the inning.

Vermont would then score four unearned runs in the fifth inning for a 6-3 lead, but the inning almost wasn't for the Expos. With no outs Brad Ditter tried to score from second on a Lorvin Louisa single, but was out at the plate. Then Louisa was picked off first, but in the run down he got back into first when second baseman Edwin Maysonet dropped the ball.

After back-to-back walks and a strikeout, Jason Tuttle singled to center to tie the game 3-3 and Jimenez followed with a bad bounce infield single to shortstop that scored another run, giving Vermont a 4-3 lead. Josh Whitesell followed with a two-run single to score Vroman and Tuttle for a 6-3 advantage. The Expos had four walks, four singles and sent 10 batters to the plate in the sixth inning.

Vermont added another run in the eighth inning with the help of four more walks from Tri-City pitchers and another run in the ninth after a leadoff walk. Ironically, the Expos hit into double plays in each of the last four innings.

Expos batters walked 16 times in the game, after averaging just 2.81 walks over the first 27 games, and four of those walks came around to score. The 16 walks broke the old record of 13 set twice in 1996 (July 29th and August 27th).

Tuttle and Manriquez each had three hits as Vermont finished with 11 hits to go along with the 16 walks. Vroman was 1-for-1 with three walks and a sacrifice bunt in his five plate appearances.

Nick Long (1-4) allowed the three runs (two earned) on six hits with one walk and five strikeouts over the first five innings for his first Vermont victory of the year. Three Expos relievers combined to allow just three hits over the last four innings.

The win snapped a 13-game road losing streak to open the 2003 season for the Expos, who had been outscored 101-16 in those first 13 road games. Vermont (5-23) and the ValleyCats (13-13) will play game two of the three-game series at Tri-City on Wednesday night with Jeremy Plexico (2-1, 0.73 ERA) on the mound as the Expos go for their second straight road victory.

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New York-Penn League Stories from July 15, 2003


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