New kids on the block meet the old guard
Nats roll into first NLCS vs. tradition-rich Cardinals
When the delirium dies down, when this historic victory sinks in, the Washington Nationals will remember the stakes of a season living on.
They must prepare for another fight, a longer one, against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Nationals are the new kids on the block in their first National League Championship Series, while the Cardinals are the old guard, the establishment, the holder of the most World Series titles, aside from the New York Yankees, with 11.
The NLCS is a place the Nationals have never been, but it is not unfamiliar. This team, as it will tell you, has been playing elimination games since May 24, since the day they returned to Washington at 19-31 and their manager, Dave Martinez, was seemingly destined for the door. The Nationals are not that team anymore. They are the team that got healthy, hit and tied the Los Angeles Dodgers for the best record in the National League after the season’s 50th game (74-38). They are the one that overtook the Dodgers when it mattered most, in the NL Division Series. They are the one that flew to St. Louis on Thursday morning with a chance to put themselves in the World Series.
The Cardinals present a serious and immediate challenge to whatever dreams the Nationals have. It might not seem like it, because the NL Central champion won the fewest games of any team in the LDS round (92), but the Cardinals possess traits that make a club difficult to deal with in October.
They have a capable starting staff, a deep bullpen and a solid defense that didn’t make more than two errors in a single game all season. They have some experience with catcher Yadier Molina, starter Adam Wainwright and outfielder Dexter Fowler.
They, perhaps most dangerously of all, have confidence. They sprung a 10-run first inning on the Atlanta Braves in their own Game 5 and bounced the NL East champion from the postseason with a 13-2 victory.
The manager, Mike Shildt, embodied the mindset his team will bring to their series with the Nationals as he stood in the visitor’s clubhouse at SunTrust Park. The 51-year-old usually appears deferential in his cap and glasses, but the hard-charging Tony LaRussa disciple emerged in the NATIONALS@CARDINALS NLCS, Game 1 (best of seven)
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Radio: clubhouse after the game. He delivered an expletive-laden speech that, unbeknownst to him, one of his younger players live-streamed on social media.
“No one [expletive] with us. Ever,” he said. “Now, I don’t give a [expletive] who we play. We’re going to [expletive] them up.”
In Game1, the Nationals likely will start Aníbal Sánchez and the Cardinals likely will counter with one of their veteran right-handers, either Wainwright or Miles Mikolas.
The four aces in this series — the Cardinals’ Jack Flaherty as well as the Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin — are unavailable because they gave all they had just to get here. (Flaherty started Game 5, and the team decided not to sit him after the explosive first inning to make him available earlier in the series. Flaherty is an NL Cy Young Award candidate, the owner of a 0.91 ERA in the second half who would line up to start Game 3 and, if necessary, a potential Game 7. Braves Manager Brian Snitker compared the 24-year-old right-hander to a younger Scherzer.)