Marlins Are Swept Away by Expos

The Montreal Expos did their best to sweep away the Florida Marlins’ playoff hopes Wednesday.

“We’ve battled through a lot of adversity these past two or three weeks; this is just a little bump in the road,” Manager Jack McKeon said after Florida was swept by Montreal, 6-2 and 10-4, to fall 3 1/2 games behind San Francisco in the National League wild-card race. “We just have to get this engine fired up again and click on all cylinders again.”

Tony Batista and Val Pascucci hit three-run homers for the Expos in the second game. Brad Wilkerson hit his ninth leadoff homer in the opener.

The teams resumed their five-game series in Florida after the Marlins won the first two games at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. Those games were moved because of the threat of Hurricane Ivan.

The Expos jumped out to a 4-0 lead against Nate Bump (2-4) in the first inning of the second game. Ryan Church, who hit the first home run of his career in the first game, had an RBI single before Pascucci hit his first career homer.

Brendan Harris became the third Expo to hit his first career homer when he led off the eighth inning.

In the first game, Montreal ended Carl Pavano’s five-start winning streak and kept Pavano (17-6) from becoming the National League’s first 18-game winner.