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  Monday, Sep. 18 7:05pm ET
Montreal 11, Florida 4
 
  RECAP | BOX SCORE | GAME LOG

MONTREAL (AP) _ Vladimir Guerrero is finishing strong, again.

``Vlady is Mr. September,'' Expos manager Felipe Alou said after Guerrero homered twice for the second straight game to lead the Montreal Expos to an 11-4 win over the Florida Marlins on Monday night.

Guerrero is 32-for-68 (.471) with 10 homers and 21 RBIs through the first 19 games of September. He hit .380 (41-for-108) with nine homers and 30 RBIs to close out last season.

Guerrero, who is hitting .357 with 118 RBIs, has eight multihomer games this season and 12 in his career. The latest came before a season-low 4,769 fans.

``Hopefully, before I die, he'll become Mr. October, and he'll get his shot at showing his stuff in the playoffs and World Series,'' Alou said.

Guerrero hit a two-run shot off Jesus Sanchez (9-11) in the first to reach 40 homers for the second straight season. Guerrero, who homered twice off New York's Bobby J. Jones on Sunday, hit his 41st in the sixth to break a 4-4 tie, leaving him one home run short of his team record.

``If you were starting a team, he would be one of the top five guys, with Alex Rodriguez and Andruw Jones,'' Marlins manager John Boles said. ``He's kind of special.''

Guerrero declined to speak to reporters following the game.

``Vlady is a guy who doesn't say much,'' Expos manager Felipe Alou said. ``He's like a machine _ machines don't talk, they just go out and destroy.''

Guerrero's brother Wilton hit his second homer of the season _ a solo homer _ in the fourth to break a 3-3 tie, the second time the brothers have homered in the same game this season, and fourth time they have done it in their careers.

The Expos added six runs in the eighth, capped by a three-run inside-the-park homer by Peter Bergeron. Bergeron slashed a liner to shallow left, which skidded past Cliff Floyd's diving attempt and rolled all the way to the outfield wall. Bergeron scored without a throw for his fifth homer of the year.

``I had to get the home run the hard way, right there at the end,'' Bergeron said. ``It counts as a home run in the book. You have to exert a little more energy on the bases but whenever you do something like an inside-the-park home run _ it doesn't happen very often, it's something exciting.''

Florida's Ramon Castro hit his second homer off Felipe Lira (5-6) to tie the game at 4 in the sixth.

The Marlins scored three times in the first. Luis Castillo hit a leadoff single and scored from first when Bergeron misplayed Mark Kotsay's single to center for an error.

Mike Johnson got the next two outs before he hit Mike Lowell with a pitch. Derek Lee followed with a two-run double to make it 3-0.

Vladimir Guerrero hit a 412-foot homer just to the right of the center-field wall to make it 3-2 in the bottom half.

``I personally would not have done anything differently with a 3-0 lead, with (Jose) Vidro hitting .370 against left-handers behind him,'' Boles said.

Johnson's run-scoring grounder tied the game at 3-3 in the second.

Lira allowed two hits, including Castro's homer, in 3 2-3 innings after relieving Johnson with runners on first and second and one out in the third.

``Lira deserves a lot of credit,'' Alou said. ``He stopped the bleeding. It had really been a disaster and he stopped it, and gave us a shot at scoring some runs.''

Vladimir's second homer cleared the outfield wall in just about the same spot as his first of the game, just to the right of center field.

Sanchez allowed six hits and five runs in 6 1-3 innings. He struck out eight, one short of his season high, and walked two.

Notes: Castillo, who leads the majors with 55 stolen bases, was thrown out trying to steal second in the second. He has gone 12 games without stealing a base. ... The Marlins signed LHP Robert Henkel, their third-round draft choice in this year's draft. ... Sanchez struck out nine on April 17 at Chicago. ... Vladimir Guerrero, who originally broke Henry Rodriguez's 1996 team record of 36 homers with 38 in 1998, has hit 121 homers over the last three seasons. ... The Guerreros also homered off Arizona's Brian Anderson on May 18. ... Montreal's last inside-the-park homer came July 21, 1998, by Orlando Cabrera at home against Philadelphia.

 


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