Cardinals, Nationals to duel for NL championship
Howie Kendrick got one more chance at redemption late Wednesday night, and he put the Washington Nationals in the National League Championship Series for the first time with a historic grand slam.
Kendrick’s blast in the 10th inning helped the Nationals pull off an improbable comeback to earn a 7-3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the National League Division Series.
Never before had a player hit a grand slam in extra innings of a winner-take-all game in postseason history. The shot came at the end of a series in which Kendrick was exposed on defense, whether it was at first base or at second. He made an error on a Cody Bellinger ground ball in the third inning Wednesday after committing two errors in Game 1.
“I was hoping for any moment,” Kendrick said. “Being in that situation and to have the opportunity to come through in that situation, that means a lot. That’s probably the best moment of my career, that at-bat.”
He was far from the only hero on a Nationals team that advanced to its first NL Championship Series in five postseason appearances. The Montreal Expos reached the NLCS in 1981 well before their move to Washington for the start of the 2005 season.
The Nationals will open the NLCS on Friday at St. Louis, as the Cardinals won Game 5 of their NLDS 13-1 over the Atlanta Braves earlier Wednesday. The Dodgers were six outs away from moving on after Walker Buehler pitched 62/3 innings of one-run ball and ace Clayton Kershaw got the last out in the seventh. But the Nationals tied the game 3-3 in the eighth inning on back-to-back home runs from Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto on consecutive Kershaw pitches.
While Kershaw has dominated in the regular season throughout his career, the postseason has been a completely different story. He now has a 4.43 ERA in 32 postseason appearances, having also taken the loss in Game 2.
The Cardinals became the first team ever to score 10 runs in the opening inning of a postseason game to oust the Braves. Their victory marked the fourth time a team won a winner-take-all game by 10 or more runs.