Nationals finish off Cardinals in four games for NLCS crown
Nationals ride 7-run first inning to complete sweep of NL Central champions
WASHINGTON — It was merely the first inning, yet fans kept rising out of their seats to applaud or yell. They were enjoying every moment of a seven-run outburst that would, eventually, propel their city to its first World Series appearance in 86 years.
And then, a couple of hours and several innings later, as the Washington Nationals were protecting a shrinking lead, those same spectators, 43,976 strong, stood and shouted and reveled some more Tuesday night, giddily counting down the outs needed to finish off an NL Championship Series sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals.
From a 19-31 record in May to the Fall Classic in October.
Extending their stunning turnaround, the wild-card Nationals got RBIs from middle-of-the-order stars Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto in that breakout first inning, and Patrick Corbin’s 12-strikeout performance and a trio of relievers helped hold on to beat St. Louis 7-4 in Game 4 of a lopsided bestof-seven NLCS.
Now NLCS MVP Howie Kendrick and his teammates get plenty of time to rest and set up their rotation before beginning in a week against the Houston Astros or New York Yankees.
“You only learn how to win through mistakes and failures,” Kendrick said. “All those failures paid off today.”
The last time the World Series came to D.C. was in 1933, when the Washington Senators lost to the New York Giants in five games. The lone baseball championship for the city was in 1924, when the Senators defeated the Giants.
The Senators eventually left D.C., which didn’t have a team at all for more than three decades until the Montreal Expos moved to Washington in 2005. The Nats had never managed to advance in the postseason since arriving, going 0-4 in the NLDS.
But this month alone they beat the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL wildcard game after trailing 3-1 heading to the eighth, and eliminated the Los Angeles Dodgers in a dramatic Game 5 in the NLDS after trailing 3-1 heading to the eighth again. Then came this dismissal of the Cardinals, who were outscored 20-6 in the series.
Corbin, a left-handed pitcher signed with $140 million of the money that became available last offseason when Bryce Harper left town to join Philadelphia, was not quite the equal of Washington’s other starters in the series.
Still, he did become the first pitcher to strike out 10 batters in the first four innings of a postseason game and earned the win after allowing four runs in five innings. Then Martinez turned to his NL-worst bullpen, such a problem for so much of this season.
After Tanner Rainey got three outs, and Sean Doolittle got five, Daniel Hudson came in for his fourth save in four chances this postseason. It wasn’t easy, though: After replacing Doolittle with two outs in the eighth, Hudson hit his first batter and walked his second, bringing pinch-hitter Matt Carpenter to the plate with the bases loaded.
Carpenter then grounded out to second baseman Brian Dozier. Hudson finished things with a 1-2-3 ninth, triggering a stadium-wide celebration.