Dontrelle Willis

Man was it hot yesterday!

Willis reclaims All-Star power

Dominates Expos in finale at Puerto Rico

By KEVIN BAXTER

kbaxter@herald.com

[bACK ON TRACK: Marlins starter Dontrelle Willis pitched seven innings allowing just one run on three hits.]AP PHOTO

BACK ON TRACK: Marlins starter Dontrelle Willis pitched seven innings allowing just one run on three hits.

SAN JUAN - Dontrelle Willis was hot Sunday.

And we're not talking about the seven-inning, three-hit effort he contributed to the Marlins' 3-1 win against the Montreal Expos. We're talking surface-of-the-sun hot. We're talking blister-your-skin hot.

So, how hot was it?

''It was scorching,'' Willis said.

Although the air temperature was 90 degrees at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, the temperature on the artificial turf hit 153 degrees in the seventh inning Sunday. And it felt even hotter in the shade.

''I felt more heat in the dugout than outside, believe it or not,'' said catcher Iv?n Rodr?guez, a Puerto Rican native. ``But I'm from here. So it wasn't that bad.''

Neither was the Marlins' weekend visit to the Expos' Caribbean home away from home. Sunday's victory gave Florida two wins in the three-game series and kept the team one game behind Philadelphia in the wild-card race. The Phillies held on for a 5-4, 11-inning win against the Mets.

But that did little to cool manager Jack McKeon, who was steamed for reasons that had nothing to do with the weather. McKeon was burning over plate umpire Dan Iassogna's first-inning warning to Willis after the left-hander threw inside to Vladimir Guerrero with two runners on and one out in the first inning.

''He said [he] thought it was intentional,'' McKeon said. ``Aw, come on. Why would we hit a guy in the first inning and intentionally load the bases? If a pitcher can't pitch inside then you're in trouble. Are we supposed to let him extend his arms and . . . Hit them over there in the next county? Gee whiz.''

Willis, who had moved Orlando Cabrera off the plate two batters earlier with a pitch that was called a strike, bounded off the mound to plead his case with Iassogna, who also got an earful from McKeon. But once everyone returned, Willis got Guerrero to hit into a double play on the next pitch, and it would be five innings before the Expos got another runner on base.

But for a while, Expos starter Javier Vazquez (12-10) was even tougher, holding the Marlins without a hit until there were two out in the fifth. Then he fell apart, giving up hits to six of the next seven hitters -- the last two RBI singles by Rodr?guez and Jeff Conine.

The Marlins' final run scored on Derrek Lee's sixth-inning sacrifice fly, which gave him five RBI in the three-game series.

That was more than enough for Willis, who was as dominant Sunday as he was before the All-Star break, when he went 9-2 to earn a spot on the National League team.

Iassogna might have had something to do with that turnaround. Asked if he used the umpire's warning as motivation, Willis sidestepped the question, saying only, ``You can call it whatever you want to.''

But he was clearly a different pitcher afterward.

He gave up two hits in his first 10 pitches, then just one -- Todd Zeile's eighth-inning home run -- in his final 92, retiring 15 batters in a row at one point.

''He was the Willis of the first half today,'' McKeon said of his pitcher, who had lost four straight decisions before Sunday. ``He was in command. He was tough all through the ballgame.''

Added pitching coach Wayne Rosenthal: ``Little by little these last three starts he's been coming back strong, trying hard to get back to where he was before. Today it clicked. He was throwing strikes, getting ahead, getting ground balls.''

In fact, just five of the 21 Expos Willis retired hit the ball in the air -- and it would have been six of 22 if the game had been played anywhere other than tiny Bithorn Stadium. Zeile's home run, which came on a two-strike slider, traveled less than 360 feet before landing in the first row of the right-field bleachers.

''It's a disgrace,'' McKeon said. ``It's one out in any [other] park in the National League.

``[but] we won. That's the big thing, we won.''

Link