Montreal Expos: Top 3 Opening Day starters from years past

We examine a list of pitchers the Montreal Expos ran out to the mound for opening day and determine who was the best of them all.

There have been some great names to take the mound wearing a Montreal Expos uniform and getting the call to be an opening day starter is a distinguished honor. We take a look at the top three names, using the criteria of what the pitcher meant to the Expos, their contribution to major league baseball as a whole, and their overall effectiveness on the mound.

Honorable Mention: Carl Morton was an 18-game winner in 1970 for the Expos along the way to winning the Rookie of the Year Award. He got the nod on opening day 1971 and won 35 games total in his four years pitching in Montreal.

Livan Hernandez pitched two years in Montreal and five in Washington and pitched the final opening day in Expos history before the team moved. He was an All-Star for the Expos and the ageless wonder, veteran of seventeen years, won 70 games for the organization, though only 26 wearing an Expos uniform.

*Pedro Martinez was tabbed as the 1996 opening day starter. The game was postponed due to the on-field death of umpire John McSherry, so technically Martinez didn’t pitch an opening day. His Hall of Fame career included two All-Star seasons in Montreal, a Cy Young, and 55 career wins with Les Expos

Montreal Expos: Top 3 Opening Day starters from years past

Silent Assassin- Javier Vazquez

Javier Vazquez was a beast, a real workhorse. He drew two opening day assignments over the course of his six-year stint with the Expos. Vazquez made at least 31 starts in all but one of his fourteen seasons, pitching at least two hundred innings nine times.

With the Expos he won 64 career games. His best season coming in 2001 where he finished 16-11 with a 3.42 earned run average. He pitched five complete games and a league-leading three shutouts for Montreal that year.

Like many Expos of the time, Vazquez became too expensive and was shipped to the New York Yankees for three players. He was an All-Star for the Yankees before moving on and pitching for four other teams.

When Vazquez hung up his cleats at the age of 34 he was coming off twelve straight seasons of winning at least ten games. He could have continued to be a serviceable pitcher, though he decided he had had enough.

His 165-160 career record with ERA of 4.22 is very respectable and he struck out over twenty-five hundred hitters during his tenure in the league. He’ll be remembered for his tall stature and crisp, clean, windup with no wasted movement.

Montreal Expos: Top 3 Opening Day starters from years past

El Presidente – Dennis Martinez

Dennis Martinez spent his first 11 years in Baltimore though kind of fell out of good graces with the team after struggling his final four seasons there. At age 32 he landed in Montreal and found the fountain of youth, resurrecting his career in a sense.

In the 8-years Martinez spent in an Expos uniform, he was an opening day starter six times.  He was an All-Star three times and finished his time in Montreal with 100 wins and a minuscule 3.06 ERA. He led the league in 1991 in ERA, complete games and shutouts.

The perfect game he pitched in Chavez Ravine against the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1991 is maybe his most memorable moment wearing an Expos uniform.

After leaving the Expos after the 1993 season, at age 40 Martinez wasn’t done yet. He went on to play five more years for three different teams, even garnering an All-Star bid with the Cleveland Indians in 1995. Martinez finished with 245 career wins and a .559 winning percentage.

The 122 career complete games Dennis Martinez pitched are a testament to how baseball used to be played. Martinez pitched 23 years total and until the age of 44, also feats which are rare to the game today.