Sky-high homer sends Nats to L.A. with hope
WASHINGTON Moments like Ryan Zimmerman’s goosebump home run at Nationals Park Monday in Game 4 of the National League Division Series are why baseball is played and why we watch it for a lifetime.
The oft-injured Zimmerman, 35, has been unseen for months at a time this season. Years removed from his turn as face of the franchise, he has been consigned by many to the sport’s scrap heap. But in the fifth inning, with the Nats clinging to a 2-1 lead in an elimination game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Zimmerman blasted a monstrously high fly ball that momentarily disappeared from sight at light-tower level. The drive seemed to hang, blocked and battered by a flag-snapping crosswind from left to right field that should have knocked it down into a fielder’s glove.
But when Zimmerman’s threerun blast landed on the centre-field grass, it was the Dodgers who were knocked to the deck, trailing 5-1 and on the way to a 6-1 loss that forced a decisive Game 5 Wednesday in Los Angeles.
Asked about the chance this might have been the last game he plays in Nationals Park, Zimmerman began to repeat his pre-game quote on the same subject: “I plan on playing more games. I feel like a lot of people think I’m not going to play more games (ever again). But I feel good. I feel like ... “
Max Scherzer cut him off, snapping sarcastically, “I really don’t think these are his last games. Only you think these are his last games.” Talk about a contract push!
Let the record show that after a fist-pump at first base, Zimmerman ran the bases with hard determination still locked on his face, perhaps showing how desperately he felt the need to deliver after striking out in his first two at-bats. The hang time for his 414-foot blast was a preposterous 6.1 seconds, long enough for Trea Turner to round the bases twice. OK, long enough for a fast man to get from home to second base or Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna Jr. to get out of the batter’s box.
As if to underline the D.C. mythology of Zimmerman’s blow, Dodgers power-hitter Max Muncy crushed what looked like a long home run to centre in the eighth inning, a shot that sent Michael A. Taylor to the wall, looking up, before he had to dash in a few feet to make the catch.
“I was just hoping it didn’t hit that wall of wind,” GM Mike Rizzo said. “But when Zim hits ’em, they stay hit.”
Manager Dave Martinez started laughing and imitated his own “blowing” in the dugout, trying to help the ball.
“He’s a beast,” fellow Nats first baseman Matt Adams said.
As usual, Zimmerman tried to be modest — always the same approach, don’t try to do too much: “Got on top of a high fastball, finally.” But then he said, “This is what we live for.”
This game, setting up a do-ordie meeting with the possibility of the wild card winners beating the 106-win, back-to-back pennant-winning Dodgers, had other hair-raising moments. In the seventh inning, Scherzer faced left-handed slugger Joc Pederson as Martinez was nailed to the top dugout step, even though the Nats’ lone lefty, Sean Doolittle, was warm. Pederson lashed a bases-clearing, three-run double down the right-field line; at least that’s what they may tell you in L.A. Right-field umpire Ted Barrett called it foul. Replay showed it was foul by perhaps a half-inch. If Barrett had pointed fair, would there have been enough evidence to reverse the call? We’ll never know.
We do know Scherzer’s next pitch, his 109th, produced a groundout, ending the ace’s night at seven innings of three-hit, onerun, seven-strikeout ball. And with that hair’s breadth escape, the last big Dodgers push died.
The implications of this victory, which had most of the crowd of 36,847 standing for much more than an hour, from the moment Zimmerman’s homer landed, could have lasting ramifications. Why? Because the Dodgers, to the despair of their fan base, are suddenly in deep doo-doo. The pressure meter at Chavez Ravine has jumped higher than the San Gabriel Mountains.
The Dodgers have a six-foot-five, 235-pound problem, one with a 0.64 career ERA in the post-season. The new Hollywood horror flick is scheduled to open Wednesday and the lead will be played by Stephen Strasburg, once described by teammate Jayson Werth as “just a big, hairy, scary, furry animal.”
The Dodgers counter with their own large and menacing righthander, Walker Buehler, one of the few pitchers with stuff roughly comparable to Strasburg’s.