MLB set to hit homestretch
Nationals could be scary; power rankings
PHOENIX – There were no slammed doors, primal screams, broken water coolers or even the faintest mumbles of discontent.
The Nationals might have lost for the seventh time in 10 games on Sunday, but if truth be told, it has been years since they’ve felt this good about themselves.
Their only real concern heading out of town was whether manager Davey Martinez ordered enough In-N-Out burgers to share on the team flight.
“We’ll get it back together, we’ll be all right,” said Martinez, preparing for a couple of Double-Doubles, Animal Style. “This team has gone through a lot. We have a chance to do something special.”
The sentiment is spread throughout the clubhouse, despite the primary starting pitchers suffering back-to-back losses for the first time in three months and three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer expected to remain on the injured list for perhaps two more weeks. No matter.
This team is scary.
And if the Nationals make the playoffs, they are terrifying.
It doesn’t matter if you’re the powerful Dodgers, the Cubs or the Braves, do you really want to face a starting rotation with Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez in the postseason?
“You build teams for October,” second baseman Brian Dozier said, “and you can ask anybody out there, we are built for October. I’d love to run our horses out there for a five-game or sevengame set. We got punched in the mouth pretty good, but look at us now.”
Rock bottom
This is a team that lost 31 of its first 50 games, with folks in Washington calling for Martinez’s dismissal and teams circling like vultures waiting for their stars to hit the trade block, and now could become everyone’s worst enemy.
“It’s crazy how things turned around here,” closer Sean Doolittle said, “and really made us a stronger team. Here we were at rock bottom, you’re wondering how long we’re all going to be around, and we’re telling ourselves it can’t get any worse than this. And now coming out of it and looking like this. It’s crazy how quickly it turned.
“It definitely helped us going through that, bringing us closer, but it’s not one of those things either where I’d ever say I wouldn’t change anything, because it was rough. Real rough.”
It was so turbulent that every time the Nationlas entered the clubhouse in May, they peeked around the corner wondering whether Martinez still was employed or whether they’d be the next one traded.
“I remember when Davey came in here and had a meeting and said, ‘We’re going to have fun around here, and I’ll be the same whether we are doing good or bad, or whatever they’re writing in the papers,’ ” first baseman Ryan Zimmerman said.
“Really, every manager says that. But when the (expletive) hits the fan, they go into self-preservation mode and completely go sideways. He’s never done that. He’s stayed the same and never changed, even when people started calling for his job. I mean, we were literally at rock bottom, but he kept everything together, and now look at us. It shows you how crazy this game is.”
They were swept in a four-game set against the Mets from May 20-23, which included three gut-wrenching bullpen meltdowns. At that point, Martinez replaced the Mets’ Mickey Callaway as the favorite to be MLB’s first manager fired.
The next thing you know, they have a couple of team meetings, go on a major league-leading 39-22 run since May 24, and are stronger than ever.
They just brought in a cavalry of lateinning relievers with Daniel Hudson, Hunter Strickland and Roenis Elias, and with those late-inning collapses now a thing of the past, they believe they can make up a seven-game deficit on the Braves in the National League East.
“The way this season went for us, getting off to such a bad start and then playing some really good baseball,’’ Doolittle says, “I think we can go toe-totoe with anybody. The mentality of this team is that even when we’re down late in a game, we never feel like we’re out of it. We believe we’re going to win, and if we don’t, we put so much pressure on them.
“It’s a feeling I haven’t had since I was with Oakland on those 2012 and 2013 teams. You come to the field every day and you expect to win.”
The Nationals can’t quite explain what happened. Sure, they started to get healthy, with their Nos. 2-5 hitters on the injured list at the same time along with two of their starters. Martinez and their veterans made sure no one panicked. And they got back to basics.
It was the wake-up call heard ’round baseball.
“I remember when we got swept by the Mets,” Doolittle says, “and it was about as bad as it gets. We said, ‘Well, it can’t get any worse than this. Let’s just go out there and see what we can make happen. We had enough veteran guys in here, and we’re lucky we had the group we had, because it kept us from going the other direction.”
General manager Mike Rizzo got together with Martinez and his staff in Miami after the Mets debacle and called for changes. He wanted more individual interaction between his coaches and players. Batting practice was not an option, it was mandatory. So was taking infield.
The Nats beat up on the Marlins, did the same to the Braves, and on to Cincinnati, and suddenly they had gone 7-2 on the rest of their trip and never stopped winning.
“I remember when we bottomed out after that Mets series,” Rizzo said, “I noticed there was no backbiting. There were no anonymous quotes. It would have been really easy for guys to point fingers, saying the bullpen is killing us. The offense is killing us. The defense is killing us. The reverse happened. You saw guys actually coming together. That was the point, it really came to my mind, that we could turn this thing around.”
Built for October
Even now, during their first losing stretch in two months, you would never know from the clubhouse demeanor. They lost two of three games to the Diamondbacks, but instead of being frustrated or angry, they teased outfielder Gerardo Parra and Dozier for their pitching ineptness.
They were the ones who took the mound Saturday night in their 18-7 rout to the Diamondbacks, scrambling to find a way to get three outs, but on Sunday turned around and made history by becoming the first teammates to pitch one day and each homer the next.
Parra, picked up from the scrapheap on May 9 after the Giants let him go, has become a cult hero in Washington. He not only has provided a huge burst of energy by his personality and performance but also has his teammates and fans clapping their hands with his “Baby Shark” walk-up song.
“We’ve played really well since he got here,” shortstop Trea Turner says, “and that’s not by coincidence. He brings so much energy, but he’s playing so well, too. Everybody is subject to getting a little Parra in our lives, now.”
This is a team that has never won a World Series, let alone a playoff series since moving from Montreal to Washington, D.C., but this time won’t be carrying the burden of being a favorite if it gets to the playoffs.
There is no Bryce Harper to carry the team. This might be the last year of third baseman Anthony Rendon in Washington, too. But the Nationals have a rotation that leads the NL in strikeouts and ranks second in ERA, on-base percentage and slugging percentage against. It’s a staff where Strasburg went 5-0 with a 1.14 ERA in July, not giving up a single homer, and Scherzer went 6-0 with a 1.00 ERA in June.
If these fellas make the dance, they could become Public Enemy No. 1.
“You said it, I didn’t,” outfielder Adam Eaton said. “But I think everyone in the game knows what our starters can do. You get these guys to October. Oh, man.
“Let’s just say I can’t wait to find out.”