Strasburg, Nats eye 1st playoff series win

He faces L.A .’s Buehler in deciding Game 5 of NLDS on the road

Stephen Strasburg ’s 2012 shutdown is a distant memory by now.

This sort of setting and stakes — Game 5 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the outcome of the NL Division Series on the line — is exactly why the Washington Nationals protected the pitcher they drafted No. 1 overall all those years ago following Tommy John surgery.

Strasburg will get the ball for visiting wild card Washington, and Walker Buehler will be on the mound for league-best L.A. on Wednesday night in the finale of the best-of-five series.

The Dodgers were 59-22 at home in the regular season, when they drew over 3 million fans.

“We play great at home. Walker loves being at home, our guys hit well at home,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday. “Very confident we’re going to come out of this and move on.”

The Dodgers are trying to reach the NL Championship Series for the fourth consecutive year, while the Nationals have

never won a playoff series since the franchise moved from Montreal to Washington in 2005.

“We’ve got their big horse against one of our horses,” Nationals catcher Kurt Suzuki said.

Each starter already had a fantastic outing to earn a win in the series: Buehler gave up just one hit while tossing six scoreless innings in Game 1; Strasburg struck out 10 and allowed one run in six innings in Game 2.

That lowered Strasburg ’s postseason ER A to 0.64, the lowest for anyone with at least four career starts.

“It ’s something that you train for, you dream about as a kid,” he said, “and you want to have those opportunities to just see how your stuff stacks up.”

As important as Strasburg and Buehler are sure to be, the bullpens could hold the key.

Washington’s relievers had the worst ER A in the NL in 2019, but manager Dave Martinez has relied heavily on starters to come out of the ‘pen during the playoffs, with mixed results.

It was the Dodgers’ turn to struggle in Game 4, when the Nationals produced a four-run inning against relievers.

Brian Rothmuller, Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler, left, threw one-hit ball over six innings in Game 1 vs. the Nats. Stephen Strasburg struck out 10 in Game 2 vs. L.A.