HOUSTON — Lord, these 2019 Washington Nationals.
If you don’t respect the hell out of these guys, at the least, then why even bother following sports?
Resilient. Resourceful. Resurgent. One more win, and they’ll be legendary.
We’ve got ourselves a World Series Game 7 because these Nationals, who would’ve been fully forgiven for calling it a season and submitting to a restful winter, proved not quite dead yet. They spoiled the Astros’ celebration party Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park, capturing Game 6, 7-2, over baseball’s best regular-season team, grinding through an early deficit and a mid-game umpiring distraction — which resulted in their manager’s ejection — to make history with the sixth straight road win in this Fall Classic, an unprecedented event.
“I’m just really proud of the boys and the way they came out and played today,” Nats manager Dave Martinez said.
Martinez watched the final 2 ¹/₂ innings from the visitors’ clubhouse, thanks to his anger over a controversial umpiring call in the top of the seventh inning that went against his team. Fitting of these Nats, however, they didn’t let Sam Holbrook’s call — that Trea Turner interfered with Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel on a play at first — turn around the game. To the contrary, the chaos seemed to make them stronger, as team most valuable player Anthony Rendon came up two batters later and slammed a two-run homer off of Will Harris to boost the visitors’ lead to 5-2.
“We’re all human. We’re not perfect people,” Rendon said. “So we’ve got to take our punches and just continue to go out there.
“No one is going to feel sorry for us. So we’ve just got to keep on playing.”
No team has proven more human or imperfect than these Nats, yet their studs keep guiding them to light. Rendon delivered a ridiculous five RBIs. Stephen Strasburg, after allowing two runs in the first inning, stopped tipping his pitches and went a remarkable 8¹/₃ innings, shutting down the ’Stros the rest of the way. Twenty-one-year-old stud Juan Soto drilled the game-winning homer in the fifth inning, a 413-foot blast to the second deck in right field, off future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander, then carried his bat to first base to match the antics of Houston’s showy Alex Bregman, who performed the same stunt on his first-inning dinger.
And now the Nationals will look to their ace Max Scherzer, who had to be scratched from his Game 5 start Sunday night because of neck spasms, to pull a Willis Reed and take the start for Game 7 Wednesday night against the Astros’ Zack Greinke.
What a fitting conclusion for the Nats, who just keep crawling out of holes and escaping jams. They rallied past their 19-31 start to the season. They overcame the Brewers in the National League wild-card game with a three-run eighth inning. They upset the league-best Dodgers in the NL Division Series, winning the last two games and wiping out a two-run deficit in the deciding Game 5 before surviving extra innings.
And now this World Series: Winning the first two here against Houston co-aces Gerrit Cole and Verlander, then dropping three straight in Washington’s first World Series games since 1933, setting up the Astros to clinch their second title in three years.
The remarkable Strasburg, however, wasn’t ready to call it a season. What a bravura performance to conclude (probably) a brilliant postseason. Remember the hype that accompanied Strasburg upon his arrival in the big leagues in 2010? He has fully lived up to it. It just took him a while.
“Oh, man, super impressed by him,” Rendon said. “Not shocked, to say the least. I’ve been watching him for a long time now. He’s had plenty of games like that. I think it’s just been heightened since he’s doing it in the postseason now, especially on the run that we’re on.”
What a run. What a game. What a team.
You ready for Game 7? You know that the Nationals are.
