The first time I wrote about the Washington Nationals was back in 2012. The team was generating some buzz in spring training, but was thought to be a year away from contending. The Nats were young, a little brash, and ended up overachieving, posting 98 wins and the best record in the National League. They entered a five-game divisional series against the St. Louis Cardinals expecting to make a deep run, maybe even to the World Series. The series was hard fought, and not without controversy, as the team had shut down Stephen Strasburg, still recovering from Tommy John surgery and on an innings limit.
I still remember watching Game 5, or at least enough of it to hit "record" on the DVR and go to bed while the game was still going on, safe in the 6-1 lead we held and thinking I would just watch the inevitable victory the following morning. That ... did not happen. In fact, the Cardinals' comeback was the first of a succession of playoff failures that turned a deep and talented group into a jittery mess that would find new and inventive ways to throw up on themselves when the lights were brightest. In 2014, it was Jordan Zimmermann being pulled in the 9th inning of Game 1 against the Giants. In 2016, it was Clayton Kershew shutting down the Nats in relief in the deciding game. In 2017, it was Max Scherzer blowing up against the Cubs. Four division titles resulted in precisely zero trips to the NLCS, much less the World Series.
Interspersed with those failures were the more pedestrian ones that happened in the off years. The Nats were always a World Series favorite, but in 2013 and 2015 they did not even make the playoffs, barely scratching out a .500 record while watching embarrassing episodes like reliever Jonathan Papelbon choking star right fielder Bryce Harper and a revolving door at manager, the skipper being replaced every couple of years in hopes of cracking the code to playoff success while lesser teams like the Kansas City Royals somehow figured out a way to win it all.
Speaking of Harper, his final season in D.C. was another example of the team’s well-earned reputation for underachieving. Handed a two-time defending division winner that had won 97 and 95 regular season games in the prior years, new manager Dave Martinez guided the team to a .500 record and they missed the playoffs. Harper alit for division foe Philadelphia and most baseball experts wrote off the Nats in favor of the deep and young Atlanta Braves or the Philly team that had just swiped DC's brightest star. The team's awful start (19-31) reinforced the belief that the team’s time had passed, that the proverbial window had closed on a team that had never reached its potential.
But then a funny thing happened. The team started to click. In fact that if you ignore that wobbly 50 game start, the Nats were the best team in baseball. Most observers cite the signing of Gerardo Parra (who had been cut by the San Francisco Giants) as the turning point for the season and there is no question the clubhouse dancing, the joy for the game, the Stras-sandwich (Parra and Anibal Sanchez swallowing the big right-hander in a group embrace), all of it was much different than prior years, when the team had a more stoic, business-like approach to the game. But there was more. The star turn of 20-year-old Juan Soto, the MVP-caliber play of third baseman Anthony Rendon, the solid core of veterans like Kurt Suzuki, Brian Dozier, and Matt Adams all played a part in the team’s resurgence.
But here is the thing. Even as the team’s odds to make the playoffs skyrocketed to “mortal lock” level, I expected the other shoe to drop because it always did. I carried two incompatible thoughts in my head - that the Nats were a great regular season team that would break my heart in the playoffs. I lowered my expectations. I resisted the Trea Turner "I Love My Team" tweets, the Baby Shark fad, all of it. Which meant this playoff run was more torture than celebration. Even after the late game comeback against the Brewers. Even after the back-to-back home runs by Soto and Rendon in Game 5 against Kershaw and the Kendrick grand slam that (finally) sent the team to an NLCS. Even after Sanchez's gem against the Cardinals and the sweep that happened a few days later. Up 2-0 against the Astros, I reevaluated my skepticism just in time to watch the Astros win all three games in D.C. "A HA. THERE IT IS." I thought. Finally, *there* was the team that would break my heart. Again, I turned to rationalization. Making the World Series was good enough. Winning two games against a 107-win team was nothing to be ashamed of, but my heart ignored what my eyes had seen all of October - a team that refused to quit.
There was a glimmer of hope. I suspected Strasburg would deal in Game 6 because I remember an even more iconic game that is unfortunately forgotten to Nats history - his elimination game performance against the Cubs in 2017. There, on a rainy and windy 50 degree day in Chicago, Strasburg threw 7 innings of three-hit, shut out ball to force a deciding Game 5. And while he got off to a bumpy start against the Astros in Game 6, the Cardiac Nats came through again.
Writers better than me have already waxed philosophical about the stunning Game 7, the unlikeliest of outcomes had actually happened. A team that never advanced out of a divisional series had come back, time and again, late and behind against the best teams in all of baseball, and conquered them all. When I think back on the Nats’ title run, that is what amazes me. The gut punches the Nats always seemed to take, they turned around and inflicted on their foes. Whereas in prior years, a wonky call, like the one against Trea Turner in Game 6, would cascade into defeat, this year, the team brushed it off.
The World Series title was also validation for Mike Rizzo’s work. The team he assembled, the high priced free agents (Scherzer, Corbin), the home grown talent (Zimmerman, Strasburg, Soto, Robles, Rendon), the players we practically stole from other teams (Turner), and the spare parts that no one else wanted (Kendrick, Parra) all came together. Due credit to Dave Martinez, whose head I and many others wanted on a spike outside Nats Park, and proved us all wrong; whatever mojo he had cooking worked.
The Nats have always been an easy team to root for. When they were a team of misfit toys like Elijah Dukes and Lastings Miledge, of John Patterson and Nick Johnson, it was enough that baseball had returned to our hometown. As the team grew more competitive, bulldogs like Jordan Zimmermann and Wilson Ramos were character guys you could not help but like. Free agents breezed through (a fwaaaa shout out to Daniel Murphy) and unlike a certain owner of another Washington sports team, the Lerners usually fell on the right line of signing the checks as opposed to meddling in personnel decisions (we will just pretend the Rafael Soriano signing that crushed Drew Storen’s spirit never happened).
I think a lot about the Nats. From the hot stove, through spring training, and the six months of the season, the team is never far from my mind. I still have a clipping from the team’s first game at RFK, Livan Hernandez in mid wind-up, those gaudy, gold-trimmed uniforms not yet making way to the cleaner red-white-and-blue and Curly W combination. The cursed words I have muttered and the joy I have experienced watching something as trivial as a well-turned double play or a slider that drops off the table. I can still tell you where I was when Strasburg debuted on June 8, 2010 against the Pirates and when he tore his UCL a few months later. I’ve read more rose-tinted Boswell columns than I can remember and spent most of this year listening to Kornheiser’s kvelling at the never-quite-right bullpen.
I think about Ryan Zimmerman a lot too. He was the team’s first pick in 2005, an accomplished third baseman 75 miles away at the University of Virginia - practically a home town boy. Zim came of age with the Nats. As a slick fielding third baseman with a flair for the dramatic walk off home run he played the game the right way, a professional on and off the field. I watched his fortunes fall as injuries and a bad case of the throwing yips relegated him to a part-time role as first baseman. He was with the team when it was a 100-loss basement dweller and a near-100 win regular season juggernaut. Zimmerman was the first Nat to hold the NL trophy after they clinched the pennant and he was on the field when the final swing and miss of the World Series delivered D.C. it’s first baseball championship in 95 years. I was thrilled for him more than anyone else.
I cried a lot watching the Nats this post season. I know that also sounds stupid, but there is a bond between a team and its fans that can cause that type of reaction. Mostly, they were tears of joy. Watching clubhouse celebrations, trophies being lofted above heads, hugs all around. I yelled and screamed and did all the stuff you do when there is something irrationally important to you that is impossible to explain to someone not similarly invested. My team won. Finally.
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