Adam Ulrey's Montreal Expos Diary

August 3, 2002 - Game 110
Miller out duels Colon to give Houston 5-3 victory 

Wade Miller, who has spent too much time on the DL, is trying to make up for lost time. The Houston right-hander won his sixth straight start, and Craig Biggio hit a tie-breaking homer in the eighth inning to lead the Astros past the Expos on Saturday night 5-3. Miller (9-3) allowed just three hits over his seven innings getting five Expos hitters to strikeout. He saw his ERA come down to 4.29 on the year. In July alone Miller went 5-0 with a 2.55 ERA and is 8-1 since being activated from the 15-day DL May 29th.

It was a tale of three run homers early in the game for both teams, with Jeff Bagwell getting the ball rolling with a tremendous shot off of Bartolo Colon to put the Astros up 3-0. In the bottom half of the fifth the Expos evened the score thanks to Brad Wilkerson's 13th homer of the year a three-run shot to put the Expos right back in this game.

Colon, who had three complete games in his six previous starts since joining the Expos, allowed six hits and three runs in seven innings. His ERA is still a phenomenal 2.94 for the Expos. T.J. Tucker, who has struggled of late, continued his swoon with another bad outing going just 1/3 of an inning giving up one hit and two runs and a walk to see his record drop to 6-3 for the year.

Both the old guys, Bagwell and Biggio, did the bulk of the damage. They combined for five hits and four of their five RBIs. Bill Wagner pitched a flawless ninth to get his 22nd save in 27 opportunities. The loss dropped the Expos back to .500 with a 55-55 record and 6 1Z¯2 games behind the Dodgers for the Wild Card slot in the playoffs. Galarraga went 0-for-4 to end his modest eight-game hitting streak.

Tomorrow is the finale with Javier Vasquez pitching against the Astros rookie phenom Kirk Saarloos.