Tri-Cities Atoms

90-72, tied for first in the ACL
April: 11-10. May: 17-12. June: 16-11. July: 13-12.
August: 14-14. September: 17-10. October: 2-3.

First season: did not play; expansion team

NOTES
The Atoms tied Seaview for first place in the ACL but lost a best-of-three game playoff for the pennant.

Atoms statistics

What went right?
Pitching, especially the bullpen. Tri-Cities had the lowest ERA in the ACL, 3.77, and led the loop with 48 saves. Oddly, though they had the top staff in the league, only four of their hurlers made the leader boards. Dennis Eckersley was the league saves leader (36). David Cone was second in shutouts (4), Randy Johnson was fourth in strikeouts (214), and Roger Clemens was 10th in ERA (3.42). The Rocket was the team's big winner at 15-8.

What went wrong?
The Atoms' offense was only so-so. They had the lowest team batting average, .237, were tied for eighth in on-base percentage, and were ninth in slugging. Yet somehow they managed to be only slightly below average in runs scored. The only Tri-Cities player to crack the offensive leaderboards was Roberto Alomar, who stole 40 bases to finish second in the league. None of them hit .300, had 30 homers, or 100 RBI.

Mike Hargrove was the choice to manage the Tri-Cities club in a close runoff. Hargrove won 721 games at the helm of the Cleveland Indians during the '90s, just three more wins than Tom Kelly logged for the Twins and six more than Johnny Oates skippered for Baltimore and Texas. Joe Torre won 730 games as a manger in the '90s—351 in the National League with the Cardinals, and 379 in the American with the Yankees. Torre is the regular catcher for Wenatchee, so didn't want to manage anyway.