A Nationals holiday
Nationals have given Washington its first pennant since 1933.
WASHINGTON — Baseball has had a long, agonizing history in the nation’s capital, where decades of abject failure led teams to abandon the city and seek success elsewhere. But now, after 86 years and the departure of two franchises, Washington will finally host a World Series again.
The Washington Nationals beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-4, on Tuesday to complete a four-game sweep in the National League Championship Series and clinch the first pennant for a Washington team since the Senators did it in 1933.
When center fielder Victor Robles caught the final out, the Nationals players poured out of their dugout to celebrate the culmination of a pursuit that included 33 years without a major league team in the city.
One of the celebrants was first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, the longest-serving member of the team. He was called up from the minors in 2005, the year the Montreal Expos moved to Washington and became the Nationals.
“I was 20 years old when I got here, we were not very good,” Zimmerman said. “I feel like me, the fans, the community are kind of one, and they deserve this just as much as we do.”
The Nationals never trailed in the series and became the 29th of the current 30 franchises in Major League Baseball to reach the World Series. The Seattle Mariners are the only other team that has never played in the Fall Classic.
The Nationals’ road to the World Series was not an easy one. Before the season they lost Bryce Harper, their most dynamic player, to the Philadelphia Phillies through free agency, and then got off to a slow start. On May 23 they were 12 games under .500 (19-31) and 10 games out of first place in the National League East.
What’s more, in September, Manager Dave Martinez had a cardiac catheterization procedure.
“Often bumpy roads lead to beautiful places,” Martinez told the fans during the postgame celebration on Tuesday, “and this is a beautiful place.”
The team rallied to end the regular season with 93 victories and then won the N.L. wild-card game. The Nationals went on to beat the Dodgers in their division series, with a thrilling Game 5 win in Los Angeles that earned them a spot in their first NLCS.
Once there, they received superb performances from starting pitchers Anibal Sanchez and Max Scherzer, who each carried a no-hitter bid into the seventh inning as the Nationals won the first two games of the series in St. Louis. As they head into the World Series, they have won 16 of their last 18 games.
The 36-year-old Howie Kendrick, who hit four doubles and knocked in four runs in the series, was named the most valuable player. Like his current employers, Kendrick has never
played in a World Series.
Kendrick was held hitless in Game 4, but he scored in the first inning, when the Nationals pushed seven runs across by sending 11 batters to the plate. Juan Soto, Robles and Yan Gomes all had run-scoring hits, and Trea Turner knocked in the last two runs with a two-out single.
Patrick Corbin started for the Nationals, and for the first four innings he picked up where Scherzer and Sanchez had left off. Ten of his first 12 outs came on strikeouts, all swinging, and he fanned a dozen Cardinal batters over all in five innings of work.
Yadier Molina homered in the fourth for St. Louis, and the Cardinals added three more runs in the fifth. They managed to get potential tying runs on base with two outs in the eighth, but Daniel Hudson got the longtime Cardinal Matt Carpenter to ground out, ending that threat.
“I don’t know what it means to me, but I’m excited about what it means to this organization and the fan base,” reliever Sean Doolittle said.
The Nationals will begin their first World Series appearance next Tuesday against the winner of the American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Houston Astros.
The last World Series game in Washington was played on Oct. 7, 1933, when the Senators lost to the New York Giants in the clinching Game 5. Those Senators moved to Minnesota in 1961 and became the Twins, and a new version of the Senators emerged in Washington that same year. But they lasted only 11 seasons before moving to Texas to become the Rangers.
For older baseball fans in D.C., the wait for another World Series has felt interminable. That is especially so because after the Senators lost to the Giants in 1933, the team had a winning record only four more times before moving to Minnesota.
But today a new team plays baseball in Washington, and the World Series is back in town. Now the Nationals will try to become the city’s second major league champion — and the first since the Senators won the Series in 1924.