5-run 8th helps Washington even series at a game apiece
WASHINGTON — Things were looking bleak for the Washington Nationals and their dormant offense until Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman took over.
Harper hit a tying tworun homer in the eighth inning and Zimmerman tacked on a three-run shot moments later to lift the Washington Nationals to a 6-3 comeback victory over the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs on Saturday, evening their NL Division Series at a game apiece.
The Nationals were in serious danger of falling behind 2-0 in the series, entering the eighth trailing 3-1 after dropping Game 1 by a 3-0 score. But after accumulating four hits through the first 16 innings of the postseason, NL East champion Washington broke out with five runs and four hits, led by 2015 NL MVP Harper and longtime face of the franchise Zimmerman.
“I was kind of bewildered, because it’s not too many teams or pitchers that have held us in check like that for a couple days,” Nationals manager Dusty Baker said. “I just knew in the bottom of my heart that we were going to explode for some numbers, which we’ve done all year.”
The NLDS moves to Wrigley Field for Game 3 on Monday. The Cubs will have Jose Quintana on the mound and the Nationals counter with two-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer, who was pushed back in the rotation because of an injured right hamstring.
Jon Lester held Washington to one run and two hits through six innings, but Cubs manager Joe Maddon turned to his bullpen and everything changed.
After pinch hitter Adam Lind led off the eighth with a single, Harper connected off a hanging curveball from Carl Edwards Jr., taking a moment to admire his shot before chucking his bat to the ground as the ball reached the second deck in right field. His teammates in the dugout reacted immediately, screaming and raising fists as the ball tore through the night air.
Maddon defended his decision to have the rightythrowing Edwards pitch to the lefty-batting Harper.
“He made a bad pitch and the guy didn’t miss it, and that’s it. Sometimes that happens. Bryce is good. C.J. is good,” Maddon said. “Bryce got him.”
“We knew Harp was due,” Baker said. “He’s known for the big moment. Man, he blasted that ball a ton.”
“The more at-bats I get,” Harper said before Game 2, “the more comfortable I get.” Harper also said Saturday’s Game 2 was “not gotto-win,” that he’s “played in a lot of bigger games, I feel like, than this,” and that “growing up, playing in front of 15,000 people at 10 years old, it’s kind of the same thing to me.”
After the next two men reached, Zimmerman stepped in to face Mike Montgomery.
His shot off a 93 mph fastball was hardly the nodoubter Harper’s drive was, but on an evening in which balls carried in 12 mph wind — every run scored on a homer — this one barely cleared the green wall in left field.