June 5, 1970: Cocó Laboy’s ninth-inning homer snaps Montreal Expos’ 11-game skid

The June 5, 1970, matchup between the defending National League West Division champion Atlanta Braves and the expansion Montreal Expos appeared to be lopsided. The Expos were on an 11-game losing streak and had been shut out twice in a row, forcing manager Gene Mauch to call a pregame meeting with his players.

The 90-minute discussion worked like a charm. After falling behind 2-0, Montreal rallied in the seventh inning to tie the score. Expos third baseman José “Cocó” Laboy, The Sporting News NL Rookie of the Year in 1969,1 capped the comeback with a ninth-inning home run off future Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm, and Montreal hung on for a stunning 3-2 victory.

The Expos had selected Laboy with their 27th pick in the NL expansion draft in October 1968. The native of Ponce, Puerto Rico, spent 10 long years toiling in the minor leagues for the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals. Despite batting .298 from 1966 to ’68 and posting a 100-RBI season for the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate, Laboy had never received as much as a September call-up. The expansion draft was his ticket out of the minors. “I was glad the Expos drafted me because I had a chance to play [in the majors],” Laboy recalled decades later.2

The 28-year-old Laboy was on fire early in the Expos’ inaugural season – on May 1 he was second in the NL with a .388 average − and he quickly became a fan favorite.3 He finished the season batting .258 with 18 home runs and a team-leading 83 RBIs. Laboy also paced the Expos with 29 doubles and played solid defense at third base.

The Expos tied their expansion cousins, the San Diego Padres, with a major-league-worst 52-110 record in 1969. Expectations for 1970 were higher, especially from Mauch. He went out on a limb in January by declaring that he would be “disappointed if we didn’t win at least 70 games this season.”4

The Expos were inconsistent early in their second season. They were outscored 74-27 in their first 11 games – winning only once − before rebounding to take 15 of their next 27 contests. Another batting slump resulted in an 11-game losing streak from May 23 to June 4, dropping Montreal into last place in the NL East Division with a 16-33 record, 11½ games out of first. The “70 in ’70” prediction was looking like a pipe dream.

The Braves were on a roll as they opened a three-game series with the Expos in Atlanta on June 5. They had won 10 of their previous 13 games, leaving them in second place with a 29-19 record, six games behind the surging Cincinnati Reds. Atlanta’s offense was led by the fearsome trio of Henry Aaron, Rico Carty, and Orlando Cepeda. Carty won the batting title in 1970 with a .366 average and the three veteran sluggers combined for a whopping 97 homers and 330 RBIs.5

Twenty-three-year-old southpaw George Stone, in his second full season in the major leagues, got the start for Atlanta. He came into the game with a 5-1 record and a 3.57 ERA.6

Stone was opposed by 23-year-old righty Mike Wegener. The Expos had selected him with their eighth pick in the expansion draft after an impressive 1968 campaign in Triple A.7 He struggled with his control in 1969 – a persistent issue during his professional career – and pitched through elbow pain,8 compiling a 5-14 record and a 4.40 ERA. Wegener was making his third appearance of 1970 after undergoing offseason surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow.9

Wegener cruised through the first two innings before giving up an unearned run in the third. Atlanta loaded the bases with nobody out on a pair of walks sandwiched around Bob Didier’s groundball through the legs of shortstop Bobby Wine.10 Braves shortstop Gil Garrido, playing for an injured Sonny Jackson,11 hit another grounder to Wine, who tagged Didier for an out, but his throw was too late to get Garrido at first and Clete Boyer crossed the plate with the game’s first run.

In the first four innings, Wegener limited Atlanta to four walks and no hits. Didier broke up the no-hitter with one out in the fifth on an infield single, and after Wegener walked the pitcher Stone, Garrido singled to left field to load the bases. Félix Millán hit a grounder that should have been an inning-ending double play, but the ball took a bad hop and hit Wine in the face for another infield single, scoring Didier. Wine stayed in the game and the next batter, Aaron, hit into an inning-ending 6-4-3 twin killing.12 Atlanta led, 2-0, after five innings.

Meanwhile, Stone breezed through the first six innings, holding the Expos to just three singles and a walk. John Boccabella, filling in for an injured Ron Fairly at first base,13 doubled with two down in the seventh, breaking Stone’s streak of 10 consecutive outs. An RBI single by Wine snapped the Expos’ streak of 26 consecutive scoreless innings and cut Atlanta’s lead in half.14 Bob Bailey, batting just .107, pinch-hit for Wegener. He flared an opposite-field double down the right-field line and Wine scooted home with the tying run.

Southpaw hurler Dan McGinn replaced Wegener in the bottom of the seventh.15 McGinn retired only one of the three batters he faced before giving way to righty Bill Dillman with runners on the corners.16 Dillman preserved the tie by inducing Millán to hit into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

With one out in the eighth and an Expo on second base, 47-year-old Wilhelm came on in relief of Stone.17 The wily reliever escaped the inning by retiring the next two Montreal batters, and after Dillman tossed a scoreless bottom of the frame, the teams went to the ninth tied, 2-2.

Laboy, who had been ice cold for the first six weeks of the season, led off the ninth. Despite having hits in 12 of his previous 13 games, he came into the contest hitting just .188, third worst in the NL.18 Laboy slammed one of Wilhelm’s knuckleballs 400 feet over the left-center-field fence for his second homer of the season, giving the Expos a 3-2 lead.19

Former Brave Claude Raymond pitched a perfect ninth, earning his sixth save,20 and the Expos’ 11-game losing skid was over.21 As of 2025, it was tied for the third longest losing streak in franchise history behind the brutal 20 consecutive defeats in 1969 and a 12-game skein in 1976.22 (The 2008 Washington Nationals also lost 12 in a row.)

Laboy was his usual humble self after the contest. “I knew I hit it well, but I didn’t know it was gone because I’m not a power hitter,” he said. “It feels great to break the losing streak.”23

The key to the victory was hanging a 0-for-10 collar on Aaron, Carty, and Cepeda. The dangerous trio also struck out twice and grounded into two double plays.24 Carty, who entered the game with a major-league-leading .435 batting average, was held hitless for only the fifth time in 49 games.

The victory seemed to kick-start the Expos offense. Laboy homered in the next two contests and Montreal thumped the Braves 12-4 and 10-1 for an unlikely three-game sweep, dropping Atlanta nine games out of first place.25

The sweep turned out to be pivotal for both teams. From June 5 to the end of the season, the Braves went just 47-67, and they finished a disappointing 26 games behind the division-winning Reds.26 The Expos posted a 57-59 record over that same period, giving them a commendable 73-89 mark and making Mauch look prescient with his bold “70 in ’70” prediction. Montreal was still last in the NL East, 16 games behind the first-place Pittsburgh Pirates, but the Expos could take solace knowing that they had won at least eight more games than their three expansion cohorts.27

Laboy continued to hit reasonably well until late July, raising his average to .228, before falling into another batting funk. An unusually low batting average on balls in play (BAbip),28 combined with pitchers feeding him more off-speed pitches than in 1969, led to a disappointing sophomore season. Laboy finished with a .199 batting average, 5 homers, and 53 RBIs, although he led the team in doubles (26) for the second consecutive season.

Bailey’s pinch-hit RBI double on June 5 completely changed the trajectory of his season. From June 5 to August 15, Bailey hit .403 with 18 homers and 52 RBIs in a utility role.29 With Laboy still struggling in mid-August, Mauch decided to make Bailey his regular third baseman.30

Laboy never regained the magic of his rookie season. He was used sparingly in 1971 and then was slowed by a knee injury suffered in the Puerto Rico winter league. The Expos released him in September 1973. Although his stint in Monreal was relatively short,31 Laboy was still beloved by Expos fans years after the team was relocated in 2005.32

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Troy Olszewski and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, Retrosheet.org, and the SABR biographies of José “Cocó” Laboy, Mike Wegener, and Hoyt Wilhelm. Unless otherwise noted, all detailed play-by-play information was taken from the article “Laboy’s Ninth-Inning Homer Beats Braves,” in the June 6, 1970, edition of the Montreal Gazette. The author also reviewed game coverage in the Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution, among other newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL197006050.shtml  

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1970/B06050ATL1970.htm 

Photo credit

Photo of Coco Laboy courtesy the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Ted Sizemore won the National League Rookie of the Year Award, as voted by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Laboy tied Al Oliver for second place in voting.

2 Ian MacDonald, “Can’t Forget ‘Coco’: Former Expo Laboy, ’69 NL Rookie of Year, Has Only Fond Memories About Montreal,” Montreal Gazette, April 8, 2003: C-4.

3 Jonah Keri, Up, Up & Away: The Kid, The Hawk, Rock, Vladi, Pedro, Le Grand Orange, Youppi!, The Crazy Business of Baseball, & the Ill-fated but Unforgettable Montreal Expos (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2014), 36; MacDonald, “Can’t Forget ‘Coco’: Former Expo Laboy, ’69 NL Rookie of Year, Has Only Fond Memories About Montreal.”

4 Ted Blackman, “Expos Will Win at Least 70 – Mauch,” Montreal Gazette, January 20, 1970: 9.

5 Carty hit .366 with 25 homers and 101 RBIs in 1970. Aaron batted .298 with 38 homers and 118 RBIs, while Cepeda hit .305 with 34 homers and 111 RBIs.

6 Stone helped Atlanta win the inaugural NL West Division title in 1969. He posted a 13-10 record and a 3.65 ERA in the regular season and appeared in relief in Game Three of the NLCS against the New York Mets.

7 Wegener improved his control dramatically in 1968 with the Pacific Coast League’s Padres. He went 4-12 with a 3.51 ERA while walking just 3.4 batters per nine innings – the fewest in his professional career. He walked 5.1 batters per nine innings in his major-league career with the Expos in 1969-70.

8 Ted Blackman, “Laboy’s Ninth-Inning Homer Beats Braves,” Montreal Gazette, June 6, 1970: 14.

9 In Wegener’s first appearance he pitched three innings of relief, giving up one earned run on one hit and no walks against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He started against the Reds on May 29, surrendering two earned runs on nine walks and four hits in 5 1/3 innings pitched. Wegener went 3-6 with a 5.26 ERA in 1970. It was his second and final big-league season. Wegener is best known for being the victim of Willie Mays’ 3,000th hit on July 18, 1970. Dan Rosenburg, “Claude Victim of Blast,” Montreal Star, May 30, 1970: 61.

10 Dan Rosenburg, “‘Bible Blast’ Snaps Expos Out of Losing Streak,” Montreal Star, June 6, 1970: 61.

11 Wilt Browning, “Injury, Gonzalez’ Slump Shuffle Braves’ Lineup.” Atlanta Journal, May 21, 1970: D-1.

12 Aaron had collected his 3,000th hit on May 17.    

13 Rosenburg, “‘Bible Blast’ Snaps Expos Out of Losing Streak.”

14 The scoreless innings streak began when three relievers kept the Expos off the scoresheet in the final two innings of the June 2 game in Houston. Shutouts by Jack Billingham on June 3 and Tom Griffin on June 4 in Houston and six scoreless innings by George Stone at the beginning of the June 5 game ran the streak to 26. As of the start of 2025, the Expos/Nationals franchise record was 34 consecutive scoreless innings, set by Expos batters on April 11-16, 2004.

15 McGinn is best known for hitting the first home run in Expos/Nationals franchise history, which was also the only home run of his professional career. He hit it off Tom Seaver in the Expos’ inaugural game. (Rusty Staub and Laboy also homered in that landmark contest.)

16 Both McGinn and Dillman had pitched ineffectively against the Houston Astros the previous day. McGinn got the start and lasted only three innings, giving up four earned runs on four hits and three walks. Dillman tossed 1 2/3 innings of relief on June 4, surrendering four earned runs on two hits and two walks. Dillman had been acquired in a trade with St. Louis in May. He entered the June 5 game with a 6.75 ERA in seven relief appearances. Montreal sent Dillman to the minors in mid-July, freeing up a roster spot for future Cy Young Award winner Mike Marshall. “Expos Obtain Mike Marshall,” Montreal Gazette, July 20, 1970: 11.

17 At the time, Wilhelm was believed to be 46 years old. He was still a productive pitcher in 1970, posting a 6-4 record with a 3.10 ERA and 13 saves in 50 appearances for the Braves. Twelve days after surrendering the home run to Laboy, Wilhelm played in his only game in Canada, tossing 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief. Wilhelm walked Laboy with two out in the ninth, a runner on second base, and the Braves leading 6-5. Bob Priddy relieved Wilhelm and got the last out to earn the save.

18 The only two qualified NL players with lower batting averages were Houston’s Johnny Edwards (.174) and Montreal’s Bobby Wine (.182). Laboy was 0-for-3 so far in the game and his seven-game hitting streak was hanging in the balance when he batted in the ninth. His hitting streak was snapped at 11 games – tied for the longest of his big-league career – on June 10. He also had an 11-game hitting streak in 1969 from June 26 to July 5.

19 Associated Press, “Coco Slaps Homer, Expos End Streak,” Macon (Georgia) News, June 6, 1970: B-1; Rosenburg, “‘Bible Blast’ Snaps Expos Out of Losing Streak.”

20 Atlanta sold Raymond’s contract to Montreal on August 19, 1969.

21 Dillman earned the victory, the seventh and final win of his major-league career.

22 As of the midpoint of the 2025 season, the three other 11-game losing streaks were by the 1977 Expos, 1991 Expos, and 2025 Nationals.

23 Associated Press, “Coco Slaps Homer, Expos End Streak.”

24 Carty and Cepeda each drew a walk in the game.

25 In the three-game series, Laboy went 5-for-12 at the plate with 3 homers and 5 RBIs.

26 The Braves finished in fifth place with a 76-86 record. They won just three more games than the Expos in 1970. Cincinnati swept Pittsburgh in the NLCS before dropping the World Series to the Baltimore Orioles in five games.

27 The San Diego Padres posted a 63-99 record in 1970, while the Kansas City Royals and the Milwaukee Brewers — formerly the Seattle Pilots — went 65-97.

28 Laboy’s BAbip went from .279 in 1969 to .231 in 1970. The league-wide BAbip was .282 in 1969 and .287 in 1970. Laboy’s BAbip rebounded to .282 in 1971. A low BAbip may indicate a streak of bad luck. Looking back on the 1970 season, Laboy recalled that “every time I hit the ball solid, I smacked it right at somebody.” MacDonald, “Can’t Forget ‘Coco’: Former Expo Laboy, ’69 NL Rookie of Year, Has Only Fond Memories About Montreal.”

29 Bailey was used in left field, third base, first base, and as a pinch-hitter during this period.

30 Bailey remained Montreal’s regular third baseman until the end of the 1973 season.

31 Laboy played for the Expos from 1969 to 1973, hitting .233 with 28 homers, 62 doubles, and 166 RBIs in 1,247 at-bats. He never played for another major-league team.

32 Laboy returned to Montreal in 2019 to be part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Expos’ inaugural season. Frédéric Daigle, “Montréal Se Souvient Encore de Coco Laboy (Montreal Still Remembers Cocó Laboy),” Réseau Des Sports, March 24, 2019, https://www.rds.ca/baseball/expos-montreal-se-souvient-encore-de-coco-laboy-l-ancien-joueur-des-expos-de-montreal-baseball-1.6704224; MacDonald, “Can’t Forget ‘Coco’: Former Expo Laboy, ’69 NL Rookie of Year, Has Only Fond Memories About Montreal.”