Nats get 6 days off before Series
WASHINGTON >> Doing a little research ahead of the World Series, Washington Nationals second baseman Brian Dozier came across some numbers that made him feel OK about his team’s long layoff.
“I saw a stat today where there’s been 12 times where teams have had five or more days off going into the World Series. And you know what the record was? 6-6,” Dozier said. “So it’s not that big a deal.”
Baseball is a sport that is more of a daily grind than any other, with game followed by game followed by game for six months, so this stretch is rather unusual for the Nationals: They haven’t played since finishing off a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Championship Series at home last Tuesday — and they won’t play until Game 1 of the Fall Classic on the road next Tuesday.
Washington’s next opponent gets much less of a respite: The Houston Astros and New York Yankees were getting set to play Game 6 of the AL Championship Series on Saturday night.
The good news for the Nationals is that their pitchers get to recharge and they can set up their rotation exactly how they want. The flip side is that their hitters might not be sharp when play resumes.
“Baseball season’s kind of uncomfortable. Your body’s kind of under constant fire,” right fielder Adam Eaton said. “And when you get a breath of fresh air, sometimes it has a tendency to relax a little bit.”
A year ago, Dozier went to the World Series with the Dodgers, who faced a Boston Red Sox club that had two more days of rest than Los Angeles did. And Boston wound up winning.
But the previous nine champs — nine! — were the teams that had less time off.
In that span, there were only two examples of World Series teams that had four more days away than the other club: The 2012 Detroit Tigers (who featured current Nationals pitchers Max Scherzer and Aníbal Sánchez) hit .159 and got swept by the San Francisco Giants; the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies batted .227 and lost to the Yankees in six games. Dozier doesn’t find it daunting. “We’re all professionals in here. We know what it takes. We have live pitching every day. Some guys might hit, some not — whatever you think you need to do to get ready,” he said, then broke into a smile. “We’re not 16. We’ve got some 42-year-olds around here that’s been around.”