2003 Montreal Expos season

The 2003 Montreal Expos season was the 35th Major League Baseball season for the Montreal Expos, and the team's penultimate season in Canada. The team competed as members of the National League East. The Expos played most of their home games at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, while also playing 22 home games at Estadio Hiram Bithorn in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
On August 28, 2003, the Expos were tied atop the Wild Card race of the National League, with several other teams all having a.526 winning percentage. However, the team faded during the stretch and failed to make the postseason, finishing 18 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the National League East and 8 games behind the Florida Marlins in the Wild Card race. The Expos' season record of 83–79 was identical to the one they finished with the previous season. This was the Expos' last winning season in Montreal, and their last overall as a franchise until 2012. When rosters expanded on September 1, MLB refused to allow the league-owned team to add any players.

Spring training

After holding spring training at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida, from 1998 through 2002, the Expos moved to Space Coast Stadium in Viera, Florida, for spring training in 2003. The move to Viera came about as the result of a deal in which Major League Baseball bought the Expos from Jeffrey Loria, who then purchased the Florida Marlins; as part of the deal, the Marlins traded spring training sites with the Expos, moving from Viera to Jupiter. The franchise, as the Expos in 2003 and 2004 and then from 2005 as the Washington Nationals, would hold spring training at Space Coast Stadium through 2016.

Regular season

June 24, 2003 – Brad Wilkerson hit for the cycle in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
June 28, 2003 - Texas Rangers outfielder Juan Gonzalez rejected a trade to the Expos, exercising the no-trade clause in his contract after the teams agreed to a deal.
August 26, 2003 – The Expos rallied from being down 8-0 and 10–3 to claim a 14–10 win against the Philadelphia Phillies and be within two games of the National League Wild Card. It was the second biggest comeback in Expos history.
September 14, 2003 – Vladimir Guerrero hits for the cycle against the New York Mets.

On August 30, 2002, MLB signed a collective bargaining agreement with
the players association, which prohibited contraction through the end of the agreement in 2006.
Ultimately, the Expos finished 8 games behind the Wild Card Florida Marlins.

Puerto Rico

Although their attendance increased from 7,935 per game in 2001
to 10,031 in 2002,
MLB decided that the Expos would play 22 of their home games at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2003. Despite being a considerably smaller facility than Montreal's Olympic Stadium, attendance in San Juan's Hiram Bithorn Stadium averaged 14,222, compared with 12,081 in Montreal.
The Puerto Rican baseball fans embraced "Los Expos" as their home team, all the while hoping the team would make a permanent move to Puerto Rico. Thanks in part to the San Juan games, the Expos were able to draw over a million fans at home in 2003 for the first time since 1997. The Expos' season in Puerto Rico was chronicled in the MLB-produced DVD Boricua Beisbol – Passion of Puerto Rico.

Opening Day lineup

Source

Notable transactions

August 20, 2003: The Expos signed Todd Zeile as a free agent.

Attendance

Including both games played in Montreal and "home" games played in San Juan, the Expos drew 1,025,639 fans during the 2003 season, and were 16th in attendance among the 16 National League teams. Their highest attendance for the season was a game in Montreal on April 22, which attracted 36,879 fans to see them play the Arizona Diamondbacks, while their lowest was for a game in Montreal on May 7 against the San Diego Padres, which drew only 5,111 fans. For games played in San Juan, the largest crowd was 18,264 for a game against the New York Mets on April 12, and the smallest was a crowd of 10,034 that came to a game against the Anaheim Angels on June 3.

Player stats

Batting

Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; R = Runs scored; H = Hits; 2B = Doubles; 3B = Triples; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in; AVG = Batting average; SB = Stolen bases
Complete offensive statistics are available .

Pos	Player	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	SB
C		108	335	34	77	26	1	9	46	.230	0
1B		130	436	57	121	27	0	16	71	.278	1
2B		144	509	77	158	36	0	15	65	.310	3
SS		162	626	95	186	47	2	17	80	.297	24
3B		105	227	31	59	10	1	1	10	.260	5
LF		146	504	78	135	34	4	19	77	.268	13
CF		141	483	66	121	25	5	5	47	.251	18
RF		112	394	71	130	20	3	25	79	.330	9
OF		126	340	36	81	17	1	9	52	.238	9
UT		111	272	31	65	15	2	4	22	.239	4
C		70	226	33	47	9	2	10	30	.208	0
3B		53	175	15	34	65	0	2	15	.194	2
2B		100	154	29	37	3	1	0	7	.240	11
3B		52	146	15	35	5	0	1	14	.240	0
3B		34	136	11	29	2	2	5	19	.257	1
1B		35	88	6	17	3	0	3	18	.193	0
UT		38	76	12	26	6	0	3	13	.342	0
OF		5	8	0	2	1	0	0	0	.250	0
P		31	74	2	14	1	0	0	6	.189	0
P		32	65	5	10	0	1	0	6	.154	0
P		33	55	2	10	0	0	0	3	.182	1
P		23	47	2	2	0	0	0	2	.043	0
P		21	30	1	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		44	19	1	5	1	0	0	0	.263	0
P		5	10	0	2	0	0	0	0	.200	0
P		13	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		67	4	1	1	0	0	0	0	.250	0
P		4	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		30	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		6	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		48	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		12	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	–	0
P		71	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		5	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		62	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		2	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		28	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		7	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		19	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	0
P		2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	–	0
P		5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	–	0
P		2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	–	0
	Team Totals	162	5437	711	1404	294	25	144	682	.258	100

Pitching

Note: Pos = Position; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; G = Games pitched; GS = Games started; SV = Saves; IP = Innings pitched; H = Hits allowed; R = Runs allowed; ER = Earned runs allowed; BB = Walks allowed; K = Strikeouts
Complete pitching statistics are available

Pos	Player	W	L	ERA	G	GS	SV	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
SP		15	11	3.20	33	33	0	233.1	225	92	83	57	178
SP		13	12	3.24	34	34	0	230.3	198	93	83	57	241
SP		10	12	4.16	34	34	0	199.0	233	106	92	45	118
SP		9	8	4.18	23	23	0	131.1	132	64	61	59	61
SP		6	8	4.34	23	20	0	114.0	111	59	55	41	62
CL		5	8	4.65	73	0	34	71.2	71	43	37	40	54
RP		2	3	4.73	45	7	0	80.0	90	49	42	20	47
RP		10	3	2.92	65	0	5	71.0	65	27	23	13	46
RP		2	2	3.06	70	0	1	53.0	57	27	18	13	40
RP		3	1	3.98	51	0	0	43.0	52	22	19	13	29
		2	2	5.26	32	0	0	37.2	42	22	19	13	29
		2	1	2.61	5	5	0	31.0	25	9	9	8	23
		1	1	6.83	28	0	0	29.0	34	22	22	17	26
		1	2	4.13	23	0	1	28.1	26	13	13	17	15
		1	2	5.12	13	1	0	19.1	23	12	11	6	17
		0	1	8.36	4	3	0	14.0	24	13	13	8	5
		1	0	1.64	12	0	1	11.0	4	2	2	3	12
		0	2	12.46	6	1	0	8.2	12	12	12	8	3
		0	0	0.00	5	0	0	7.1	6	3	0	5	3
		0	0	1.23	5	0	0	7.1	7	2	1	3	2
		0	0	10.80	6	0	0	6.2	13	8	8	1	4
		0	0	6.75	4	0	0	4.0	4	3	3	5	1
		0	1	15.00	1	1	0	3.0	5	5	5	3	4
		0	0	13.50	2	0	0	2.0	4	3	3	1	1
		0	0	27.00	2	0	0	1.1	4	4	4	2	1
	Team Totals	83	79	4.01	162	162	42	1437.2	1467	716	640	463	1028

Award winners

Liván Hernández, National League Pitcher of the Month, July

'''2003 Major League Baseball All-Star Game'''