Scherzer, Zimmerman lead Nats
Pitcher sharp for seven; first baseman cracks three- run home run
For a g uy whose teams kept losing in the postseason, Max Scherzer sure is delivering now. Every time he’s pitched this October, the Washington Nationals have won.
His latest outing was a seasonsaving, seven- inning masterpiece that combined with Ryan Zimmerman’s three- run homer to lif t the wild- card Nationals to a 6- 1 victor y over the leag ue- best Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night, forcing a deciding Game 5 in their NL Division Series.
Scowling and muttering to himself, Scherzer allowed one run and four hits while striking out nine — and, most importantly for Washington, he prevented L. A. from closing out the NLDS after taking a 2- 1 lead into Game 4.
With fans who braved some rain chanting, “Beat L. A.!” in the late going, Sean Doolittle and Daniel Hudson combined to get the last six outs for Washington, setting up a winner- take- all contest in the best- of- five series Wednesday at Los Angeles, with the Nationals sending Stephen Strasburg to the mound against Walker Buehler.
Whichever team advances will face the Atlanta Braves or St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Championship Series. That series is also even at 2- all.
The 35- year- old Zimmerman showed what he still can do at the plate by taking a 97 mph pitch, the second thrown by reliever Pedro Baez, and turning it into a higharching parabola that descended onto the green batter’s eye in straightaway center field for a three- run shot that made it 5- 1.
That was after Julio Urias, LA’S third pitcher and the one charged with the loss, began the fifth by ser ving up a line- drive single to Trea Turner, who f inished with three hits. Anthony Rendon, who led the majors with 126 RBIS during the reg ular season but entered Monday with just one in the playoffs, then delivered a runscoring single that made it 2- 1.
Rendon also brought home runs via sacrifice f lies in the third and sixth.
It was plenty for Scherzer. He left after 109 pitches, the most stressful coming after he loaded the bases by issuing a pair of walks with one out in the seventh. Scherzer got out of that by striking out pinch- hitter Chris Taylor and getting Joc Pederson to ground out.