July 23, 1998: Pirates’ Jon Lieber wins third straight game as defending champion Marlins struggle

In 1997 the Florida Marlins1 won 92 games and finished second in the National League East – nine games behind the 101-win Atlanta Braves – but they claimed the NL wild card, swept the NL West champion San Francisco Giants in the Division Series, and shocked Atlanta in the National League Championship Series. In a memorable World Series against the Cleveland Indians – who were looking for their first championship since 1948 – the Marlins took the title in Game Seven on 21-year-old Edgar Renteria’s 11th-inning single against Charles Nagy.2

Almost immediately after the championship parade, the sell-off began. Over the winter, owner Wayne Huizenga unloaded veterans Kevin Brown, Moises Alou, Devon White, Jeff Conine, Robb Nen, and Dennis Cook to shrink the team’s $53 million payroll.3

Reconstituted with young, unproven players,4 the 1998 Marlins opened the season with a win over the Chicago Cubs, but then dropped 11 straight games and never recovered.

On May 14 the Marlins had a 13-27 record when they sent veterans Bobby Bonilla, Jim Eisenreich, and Charles Johnson to the Los Angeles Dodgers for All-Star catcher Mike Piazza and 32-year-old Todd Zeile. After just five games, Piazza was shipped to the New York Mets for rookie Preston Wilson and minor leaguers Geoff Goetz and Ed Yarnall.5

Florida limped into its July 23 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at 37-63, last in the NL East, 28½ games behind first-place Atlanta. After losing the first game of the two-game set at Three Rivers Stadium, the Marlins had dropped seven of their last eight. The Pirates were 47-54 and had won five of their previous six games. They were in fifth place in the NL Central, 12½ games behind the first-place Houston Astros and 1½ games ahead of the last-place Cincinnati Reds.

The Pirates started right-hander Jon Lieber, who had won six of his last 10 decisions after beginning the season with a 1-6 record. The 27-year-old Lieber had a 2.22 ERA in nine starts since June 3. He had gone at least six innings in 14 straight starts and was coming off a 90-pitch complete-game victory over the Montreal Expos on July 18, his second win in a row.

Rookie right-hander Brian Meadows started for Florida. The 22-year-old Meadows, selected by the Marlins in the third round of the June 1994 draft, was 9-6 with a 4.09 ERA in 20 starts, including a 5-0 record with a 3.00 ERA in his last six starts.

Only four members of Florida’s lineup behind Meadows had appeared in the previous October’s World Series. Besides shortstop Renteria and second baseman Craig Counsell, the other two had been reserves in 1997: left fielder Cliff Floyd and catcher Gregg Zaun.

The Thursday night crowd of 11,374 waited through a 39-minute rain delay6 before witnessing a scoreless game through 3½ innings. Florida threatened to score in three of the first four innings, but Lieber dismissed the Marlins’ threats.

Rookie right fielder Ryan Jackson and Zeile each walked with two outs in the first, but Floyd flied to center to end the inning. The Marlins had another two-on, two-out chance in the second before Todd Dunwoody flied to left for the third out. In the fourth, Floyd led off with a single but was caught stealing. Derrek Lee followed with a double and took third on Zaun’s infield single, but second baseman Tony Womack denied Florida a run with a spectacular leaping catch7 of Counsell’s line drive.8 Meadows fanned to end the threat.

Limited to one hit through the first three innings, Pittsburgh broke through in the fourth. Turner Ward, Kevin Young, and Jose Guillen opened the inning with singles; Guillen’s scored Ward from second with the game’s first run.

One out later, rookie third baseman Aramis Ramírez hit a potential double-play grounder to second, but Counsell’s throw pulled Renteria off the bag for an error. The bases were loaded, and Lou Collier grounded a single up the middle to score Young and Guillen for a 3-0 lead.

In the fifth, the Pirates plated two more runs. After Keith Osik singled and was caught stealing, Ward doubled and Young singled him home. Guillen followed with an RBI double to center and took third on the throw to the plate as Young scored. Vic Darensbourg entered in relief of Meadows and ended the frame with no further damage, but Pittsburgh now led 5-0.

After leaving seven runners on base in the first five innings, Florida finally got on the board against Lieber in the sixth. With one out, Lee and Zaun singled; John Cangelosi’s two-out double to left scored Lee to make it 5-1.9

Lieber was replaced by Mike Williams with one out in the seventh after surrendering singles to pinch-hitter Mark Kotsay and Zeile. Williams retired Floyd on a fly to left and Lee on a grounder to shortstop to keep Florida off the scoreboard. The final line on Lieber, who threw exactly 100 pitches, was 10 hits and 2 walks in 6⅓ innings, but only one run allowed.

Pittsburgh put the game away against Marlins reliever Rob Stanifer in the seventh. Osik and Ward started the inning with singles. Young doubled to short left field; Osik scored, and Ward moved to third on the play. Guillen followed with his third run-scoring hit of the game to bring home Ward. Al Martin’s single scored Young as Guillen went to third. After Ramirez struck out, Collier forced Martin at second with Guillen scoring on the play. The Pirates’ lead was now 9-1.10

Zaun – hitting just .168 in 185 at-bats when the game began – collected his fourth hit to start the eighth for Florida, but Williams retired the next three batters. Jeff McCurry, who had just been recalled from Triple-A Nashville, where he was leading the Pacific Coast League with 23 saves,11 took over in the ninth inning and gave up a double to Kotsay and a walk to Zeile but closed out the 9-1 win.12

The loss was Florida’s worst since they lost 10-2 to the Chicago Cubs on June 1, and the 14 men left on base matched their season high, set on June 8 in a 17-inning win over the Toronto Blue Jays.13

“We’re not playing very good,” said Marlins manager Jim Leyland, who had led the Pirates to three NL East titles during an 11-season tenure in Pittsburgh. “We’re not doing much of anything very good right now. But these are the times a manager has to stand up for them. Anybody can kick them when they’re down. I’m not going to. Anyone who plays as hard as these kids. I’m not going to criticize them. We’re suffering through hard times because of inexperience. That’s life.”14

“We had a lot of hits tonight, but we didn’t get much production when we needed it,” Leyland added.15

Pirates manager Gene Lamont was pleased with Lieber, saying, “He gave us everything we wanted, and it’s been like that for quite a while now.”16

“Jon definitely wasn’t as sharp as he has been, but he hung in there,” Lamont said. “I think that says something about the pitcher he has become. He can go out there and win a game on a night when he’s not at his best.”17

Lieber’s streak of 15 games with at least six innings pitched was a source of pride. “It means a lot to me,” Lieber said. “It means I’m doing my job. I’m pitching well enough to stay in the game that long, and that means I’m giving my team a chance to win.”18

“My goal going into the year was to be consistent. I have nice little streak going, but I don’t even think about it.”19

He also praised his defense, saying, “The defense picked me up big-time. If Tony doesn’t make that catch [on Counsell’s line drive], that might be two runs and who knows what might happen from there.”20

Lieber’s streak ended in his next start when he allowed seven runs (four earned) in two innings at Colorado. His victory over Florida was his last of the season; he was 0-4 with a 7.28 ERA in his last seven starts, although he did pick up a one-out save at St. Louis on August 16.

Meadows had similar struggles. He was 2-6 with a 7.43 ERA in his final 10 starts of the season.

While America was captivated by the memorable home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa during the final two months of the season, Pittsburgh and Florida played out the string, each finishing at the bottom of its division. Pittsburgh ended up 69-93 while Florida was the major leagues’ worst team with a 54-108 record,21 making the Marlins the first defending World Series champion to lose 100 games.22

Author’s Note

This game was the third of 10 games that the author and his father attended as part of a Jay Buckley baseball tour. The 10-day trip included games in Milwaukee (doubleheader), Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New York (Yankees), Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, and Chicago (Cubs). Also included was a day at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, a tailgate party at County Stadium, and free time for shopping and sightseeing in Baltimore, Boston, Montreal, and Toronto. This was the author’s only game at Three Rivers Stadium, and he regrets not seeing a home run hit at the park.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted data from Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT199807230.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1998/B07230PIT1998.htm

Notes

1 The franchise changed the team’s name to the Miami Marlins beginning with the 2012 season.

2 An expansion team in 1993, the Marlins won two World Series titles in their first 11 seasons (1997 and 2003) after qualifying for the playoffs as a wild-card team each time. As of the end of the 2023 season, they had yet to win a division title.

3 “Mets Get Marlins’ Cook; Seizinger Wins 6th In a Row,” Detroit Free Press, December 13, 1997: 2C.

4 Of the 10 Marlins position players who played the most games in 1998, five were rookies with 22 or fewer career major-league games (two had no previous major-league experience prior to 1998). While not considered a rookie, another had played in 56 major-league games spread over two seasons. Two of the three Florida pitchers to pitch at least 170 innings in 1998 had no previous major-league experience.

5 Piazza drove in five runs during his short stint in Florida. He finished the season with 111 RBIs. He had 30 with the Dodgers, 5 with Florida, and 76 with New York – making him the only player with a 100-RBI season while playing with three teams.

6 Mike Phillips, “Marlins Can’t Snap Skid,” Miami Herald, July 24, 1998: 6D.

7  Highlights of the game, including Womack’s catch, can be seen on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTbPv6FyojQ, starting 6:52 into the video. ESPN SportsCenter, “1998 MLB Highlights July 23,” YouTube video (SW561), 12:12, accessed November 11, 2023.

8 Phillips. With the bat, Womack was 0-for-5, ending a 16-game hitting streak in which he was 34-for-67 (.507). Paul Meyer, “Pirates Blast Marlins, 9-1,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 24, 1998: D-1.

9 Cangelosi, a Pirate from 1987 through 1990, had entered the game in right field, replacing Jackson, when Darensbourg relieved Meadows in the fifth. Marlins manager Jim Leyland’s double-switch left Darensbourg batting third and Cangelosi hitting ninth.

10 Stanifer’s performance made the local fans happy because a local restaurant let fans turn in their ticket stub for free wings when the Pirates scored seven runs. Dan Graziano, “Marlins Pummeled 9-1 by Pirates,” Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach Florida), July 24, 1998: 1C.

11 McCurry replaced Rich Loiselle, who was placed on the disabled list with a strained back muscle after the previous day’s game. Associated Press, “Pirates’ Disabled List Adding Up With Pitchers,” Somerset (Pennsylvania) Daily American, July 24, 1998: 13

12 Kotsay remained in the game at first base after pinch-hitting.

13 After losing this game, Florida traveled to Philadelphia for a doubleheader and lost each game in 12 innings.

14 Dave O’Brien, “Pirates Pummel Marlins,” South Florida Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), July 24, 1998: 8C.

15 Graziano.

16 Meyer.

17 Associated Press, “Pirates, Lieber Reel in Marlins,” Somerset Daily American, July 24, 1998: 11.

18 Associated Press, “Lieber Leads Bucs to 9-1 Win,” Indiana (Pennsylvania) Gazette, July 24, 1998: 14.

19 Meyer.

20 Associated Press, “Pirates, Lieber Reel in Marlins.”

21 Florida was 0-9 against Cincinnati, San Francisco, and Milwaukee.

22 The previous low was the 1991 Cincinnati Reds, who finished 74-88 a year after sweeping Oakland in the World Series. Associated Press, “Phillies Finish Off Marlins,” Vero Beach (Florida) Press Journal, September 28, 1998: B4.