St. Louis to earn first trip to World Series
ton Senators lost to the New York Giants in five games. The lone baseball championship for the city was in 1924, when the Senators defeated the Giants.
The Senators eventually left D.C., which didn't have a team at all for more than three decades until the Montreal Expos — who were founded in 1969 and never made it to the World Series — moved to Washington in 2005. The Nationals had never managed to advance in the postseason since arriving, going 0-4 in the NLDS over the last seven years.
But this month alone they beat the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL wild-card game after trailing 3-1 heading to the eighth, and eliminated the Los Angeles Dodgers in a dramatic Game 5 in the NL Division Series after trailing 3-1 heading to the eighth again. Then came this lopsided dismissal of the Cardinals, who were outscored 20-6 in the series.
The Nationals became the fourth team to reach the World Series after being 12 games under .500.
Corbin, a left-handed pitcher signed with $140 million of the money that became available last offseason when Bryce Harper left town to join the Philadelphia Phillies, was not quite the equal of Washington's other starters in the series. Still, he did become the first pitcher to strike out 10 batters in the first four innings of a postseason game and earned the win after allowing four runs in five innings. Then Martinez — who so many folks thought might be fired back in May during his second season — turned to his NL-worst bullpen, such a problem for so much of this season.
After Tanner Rainey got three outs, and Sean Doolittle got five, Daniel Hudson came in for his fourth save in four chances this postseason. It wasn't easy, though: After replacing Doolittle with two outs in the eighth, Hudson hit his first batter and walked his second, bringing pinch-hitter Matt Carpenter to the plate as the go-ahead run with the bases loaded.
Carpenter, a career .481 batter with the bases full, grounded out to second baseman Brian Dozier, a defensive replacement who briefly lost the ball before gathering it and throwing to first to end that inning.
Hudson finished things with a 1-2-3 ninth, getting Tommy Edman on a fly ball to center field to end it. Players ran out of the dugout to meet in the center of the diamond while red fireworks went off around the stadium.
St. Louis has a heavy concentration of Canadians and just one American still on the roster from the group that beat the Boston Bruins in the Cup Final. Every returning player from the Cup champions took the tour, met with Trump and was present for the ceremony in the Rose Garden.
“No matter what we do, we do it as a group,” alternate captain Alex Steen said. ”I think that's how we won. We're a very tight-knit group.”
Trump mentioned the Blues adopting Laura Branigan's 1982 hit ”Gloria“as their victory song, and the U.S. Marine Band played the team into the ceremony with that tune. Young fan Laila Anderson, who was the team's inspiration while she fought a rare auto-immune disease, got her own mention.
”You inspired the Blues all season, and today you continue to inspire all Americans,” Trump said. “We all know your story.”
Blues owner Tom Stillman, who presented Trump with a No. 45 Blues jersey, called it a “light-hearted, fun kind of celebration.” He echoed Steen's sentiments about why the entire team showed up — a departure from when goaltender Braden Holtby and forward Brett Connolly skipped the 2018 champion Washington Capitals' visit in March in support of teammate Devante Smith-Pelly.