Washington Nationals: Why Expos fans should celebrate
The Washington Nationals officially clinched a spot in the World Series last night after sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS.
With the news, fans of the old Montreal Expos franchise should celebrate. The Expos are the Washington Nationals despite the relocation from Canada. This is also the franchise’s first appearance in the Fall Classic.
The Expos had been around since 1969 and always played in the NL East, where the Nationals currently play. For the most part, they were in the cellar of the National League and rarely accomplished much. The franchise relocated to Washington D.C. for the 2005 season.
They had some great players go through their system, but could never piece together a serious playoff contender. Consider this some redemption from the 1994 season for the Expos fans.
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Back then, the Expos were playing the best baseball in their franchise history with legitimate hopes of making the playoffs and a potential World Series run. The team that was together was filled with future All-Stars, Larry Walker and Cliff Floyd to name a few position players.
Walker went on to become a huge star with the Colorado Rockies, while Cliff Floyd made his name with the Florida Marlins, now the Miami Marlins.
They also had a young starting pitcher by the name of Pedro Martinez. In 1994 Martinez was in his third season in the big leagues. The stud pitcher went 11-5 with a 3.42 ERA in 23 starts with 142 strikeouts.
That season the Expos finished the season 74-40. Now the reason this doesn’t add up to be 162 games was because this was the season of the infamous players strike. The season ended on August 11 with the Expos 6 games ahead of the Atlanta Braves in the NL East.
Who knows what would have happened had the strike not happened? The Expos had the best record in all of baseball and would have had a shot at winning the World Series.
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So I say to the Expos fans, celebrate! This is your team and you should be happy the franchise is finally reaching the World Series. Cheer for them to close the deal because this team is on a roll and I don’t know if anyone can beat them at this point.