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I can't imagine how much press there would be in 1996 in Miami to see Jeff King try to tie Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak. Former Marlin Al Leiter will stand on the and in the way of history.
Leiter was our 1st expansion pick and was awful for us. He came with a career ERA of 3.80 and had the worst year of his career with an ERA of 4.93. We traded him for Dave Otto, who has been poor for us as well until this year.
After leaving Florida Leiter had the best year of his career (of course) in a free agency year and signed a 7 year $28 million deal out of it. And I am sure he doesn't like me.
With runners on 1st and 2nd and 1 out in the 1st, King popped out to Alan Trammell for the 2nd out.
With the game tied at 1 in the 3rd with 2 on and no outs, King went fishing on a curve ball to strikeout to make him 0-for-2. Frias followed with a 3-run homer to give us the 3-1 lead as we went to the 5th.
Leiter got the 1st two outs in the 5th to bring up King. On a 2-2 pitch he popped out to center and he was 0-for-3.
We led 4-2 in the 7th when King had his last chance with 2 outs and Erstad on 3rd. On a 1-0 pitch, King rolled out to short. He was 0-4 going into the 8th.
We scored 3 more in the 8th, but the inning ended with King in the on deck circle and we won the game 7-3.
His streak ended at 55 games.
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