Nats’ big step:
Washington has shaken its October daze to make a dramatic baseball postseason run.
They know how baseball works, so they will stop well short of calling themselves invincible.
Instead, the Nationals have performed at such a high level in these playoffs that they have rendered themselves practically unbeatable.
A franchise that about two weeks ago was four outs away from adding to its not-goodenough postseason history has instead taken a tiny opening in a wild-card game and burrowed its way to within a victory of the World Series at press time while rendering the Cardinals thoroughly punchless.
Stephen Strasburg became the third consecutive Nats starter to completely overpower St. Louis, holding it to one run over seven innings Oct. 14 for an 8-1 victory in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.
Two days before at Busch Stadium, Max Scherzer followed in the footsteps of Washington Game 1 starter Anibal Sanchez and carried a no-hitter into the late innings of an NLCS game. Like Sanchez, the no-hitter didn’t last, but the Nationals won.
Strasburg was masterful once again, allowing one unearned run over seven innings and striking out 12 in outdueling Cardinals ace Jack Flaherty.
Through the first three games of the series, Sanchez, Scherzer and Strasburg had not allowed an earned run in 212⁄3innings and had limited the Cardinals to just nine hits in 73 at-bats (a .123 average).
Pitching for the fourth time this postseason, Strasburg, a 31year-old right-hander, earned his third win and lowered his career ERA in the playoffs to 1.10 over 41 innings.
“He’s been a blast this year. It’s been good to be around him. I’ve seen him kind of transition into the guy he is now, dominant out on the field. He’s definitely having fun in the clubhouse,” said infielder Howie Kendrick, who keyed a four-run uprising in the third inning of Game 3 with a two-out, two-run double and doubled in another run in the fifth. “It’s special to see what he’s doing this year.”
At this point, kismet might matter as much as K’s for a team that has won seven of nine playoff games since facing a 3-1, eighth-inning deficit in the NL knockout match against the Brewers.
The Nationals roared back to win that game and survived two elimination games against the mighty Dodgers.
Now?
“There’s this weird feeling that comes over the dugout, comes over the bullpen, in the sixth, seventh inning of games,” says Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle, who recorded seven crucial late-inning outs in Games 1 and 2. “When the game is close, the game is hanging in the balance, we’re finding ways to push runs across. It’s really, really cool.”
It’s the exact opposite of this team’s identity in May, when the Nationals’ bullpen beyond Doolittle was in tatters and a 1931 start appeared to doom them.
At that point, they’d suffered 11 losses when blowing a lead in the seventh inning or later. Now?
They own the eighth inning: a three-run rally to topple the Brewers 4-3; a two-homer salvo to erase another 3-1 deficit against the Dodgers in the decisive NL Division Series Game 5; and two runs in NLCS Game 2 that proved decisive.
Overall, they were 81-40 since May 23.
One sample size is massive. The other is small. But both square with what’s unfolded on the field and with what’s now at stake.
“When you catch a break like we did in the wild-card game, you start to feel like,” says Doolittle, before pausing and perhaps catching himself, “you start to play with so much confidence, because you never feel like you’re out of a game.
“When our starting pitching is doing what it’s been able to do, giving us a chance to win every night, going deep into games, I feel like everybody’s playing with this calm confidence that we’re going to find a way to win.”
Yeah, the pitching has been OK.
Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner making his fourth playoff appearance in this postseason, struggled with a high pitch count early but held St. Louis hitless into the seventh in Game 2.
A night earlier, a pinch-hit single by Jose Martinez with two outs in the eighth was all that kept Sanchez from a bid at history.
“I know when Sanchie gets locked in, he’s nasty,” Scherzer said. “He can absolutely do anything with the baseball. He’s such a treat to watch.
“For me, I’m just in the moment. I’m not trying to do anything great.”
That goes for the whole team, going on five months now and eight scintillating playoff games.
“Right now,” says Scherzer, “it just seems like anybody who gets their number called is going to do something big.”