WASHINGTON — It’s decision time for the Nationals, and this has nothing to do with President Trump’s plans to attend World Series Game 5 on Sunday night.
Are they content capturing the hearts of this suddenly baseball-mad city? Or do they want to capture a championship, as well?
I’m being more than a bit facetious, obviously. The Astros have a good amount of say in how this 2019 Fall Classic finishes. Yet as they fell back into a series tie with an 8-1 loss to the Astros in Saturday night’s Game 4 at Nationals Park, a trip back to Houston for Game 6 guaranteed now that we’re at 2-2, the Nats looked more wiped out than Jesse Pinkman right after he escapes from Jack Welker’s gang in “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.”
Does this group of odds-defiers have one more recharge in it?
“I just told the boys, ‘Hey, we’re in the World Series. We’re going to play Game 5, tied 2-2. Who would have thought that in the beginning?’ ” Nats manager Dave Martinez said moments after Game 4 ended. “ ‘So here we are. Let’s forget about it. Can’t do nothing about the last two games. Let’s look ahead and get ready to play tomorrow.’ ”
Patrick Corbin, last winter’s big-bucks signing, battled for six innings, yet in allowing four runs, including two in the top of the first, he didn’t give his teammates with bats much time to settle in, especially since they had gone 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position in their Game 3 loss.
And Washington’s hitters, so consistently excellent since late May, extended their fizzle to two days, struggling mightily against rookie Jose Urquidy (five shutout innings!) and a quintet of relievers, managing just four hits and going just 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, that one hit an Anthony Rendon infield single that loaded the bases with one out in the sixth and set up just one run, a Juan Soto groundout. Right after that, in the top of the seventh, Alex Bregman’s grand slam off Fernando Rodney, who represented the Washington bullpen’s soft underbelly, blew the game open.
Let’s be honest here: Even if they drop the next two and lose the Series, matching the unusual pattern of the 1996 Yankees-Braves Fall Classic (the road team won the first five games, then the home team won the sixth), the Nats will sleep well this winter. They roared back from a 19-31 start to the season, the nadir arriving with a four-game Citi Field sweep at the hands of the Mets May 20-23, to make the playoffs, winning admirers along the way with Dave Martinez’s “Go 1-0 every day” philosophy and Gerardo Parra’s “Baby Shark” walk-up song.
Then came October, which has been nothing short of magical: the three-run, eighth-inning rally to top the Brewers in the National League wild-card game; the thrilling and stunning upset of the league-best Dodgers in the NL Division Series; and the four-game dismantling of the Cardinals in the NL Championship Series for the first Fall Classic appearance in franchise history and first for this city since 1933.
Throw in defeating Houston co-studs Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander in the first two games of this series, and that’ll get you a roster reunion here every 10 years.
So can the Nats get it together for their final home game of the season Sunday night, with their veteran ace Max Scherzer set to start Game 5 against Cole in front of Trump? Can Stephen Strasburg, who can opt out of his contract upon the season’s conclusion, make one more push for a few more bucks with a stellar Game 6 at Minute Maid Park? Can the Nationals’ kitchen sink prevail in a potential season-ending Game 7?
Far be it from any of us to wholly rule out this possibility. The Nats have surprised us too many times already this season.
“We don’t mind where we’re at,” right fielder Adam Eaton said. “Best-of-three. Scherzer and Stras going the next two days. … We’re not in such a bad position.”
If, however, like Richard Gere in “An Officer and a Gentleman,” they’ve got nothin’ else? The truth is they’ll be wholly forgiven.
