The Greatest Playoff Run in Baseball History

The Greatest Playoff Run in Baseball History

It’s late May 2019. The Washington Nationals are in disarray. They are clinging for dear life onto a one-run lead against their division rival Mets, trying not to lose their fifth game in a row. They have 19 wins and 30 losses at this point in the season. There’s increased buzz that their manager needs to be fired and that their team is terrible. Their best player in franchise history is now playing for a different division rival, one currently in first place. And right now they’re just desperate to keep the wheels from totally falling off when this happens. And he drives one deep left center field that goes rubless. It’s out of here. Carlos Gomez with a threerun homer. Make that 19 wins, 31 losses. Their odds to make the playoffs 3.4%. Think of it like the multiverse. For every universe, the Nationals figure this out, rebound, play good winning baseball, and somehow write the ship just enough to sneak into the playoffs from being 12 games in the red. There are nearly 30 where this goes the other way. Forgotten, disappointing, and disastrous. That’s where they’re headed. Talk grows that this team needs to be totally gutted from the top down. It’s not working. They need new players, new manager, get rid of all the excess miis on the save file and start a new. And that’s not for no reason. The losing has spoken for itself. But the gnats choose to stay the course. Manager Davey Martinez keeps his job and the team simply gets on a plane back to Washington DC playing along. Business as usual. Sodto loud sound deep left center. CU lighter up the middle. There’s a guy there. Doure game over right center. This one way back and Roaz are eaten who will take it and Ro does. And then he knocks Eaton over and helps him back up. 12 runs on 12 hits for the Nets. Now in a swing by Adams and a drive to deep right. Is it high enough? Going. Going. It’s gone. Goodbye Matt Adams to straightaway right with a two-run home run. It’s now the Nationals 14. And that’ll do it. Suzuki tags Flowers and the Nationals sweep two. Doure holding. Trey Turner deep left field high in the air coming down. See you later. The Nets sweep the series and walk off the socks six to four. Wait, is this a highlight? Off bag at first base. 3-3 game with the pitch swung on. Ground ball up the middle. Turner dives. He’s got it from his belly. Feed second for one onto first. A double play. Wow. Robless launches one deep left center toward the bullpen. See you later. He continues to kill the Phillies. This one’s fair. It’s playable. And the Nets have swept the Phillies. They’ve won their fourth in a row. Centerfielders playing the other way. And there goes Robless deep to left field. See you later. It’s a fiveun inning and it’s 6 to4 Washington. [Applause] [Music] to the right side for Doure. One throw for the sweep and the Nets get it done and the Nets are back to 500 with the Nationals trailing by a run as Juan Stos to the plate. Here’s the pitch. Swinging a fly ball to left center field. This is way back. This one is going. It is gone. Goodbye. It’s a two-run homer for one Sodto. The right guy was up. Bang. Soon goes Sodto with his third hit of the night. It’s his 16th home run of the year. RBI’s 58 and 59. And guess what? For the first time tonight, the Nationals have the lead. The kick. Here’s the pitch. Swinging the line drive center field. Robless going back. He’s there. He makes the catch. He makes the catch. And a curly W’s in the books. Two out. Runners lead first and third. Two out. Top of the ninth. 3-1 lead. Another two two on the way. Swag and a miss. He struck him out and a curly W’s in the books. One and one on Sodo and Sodo gets one in the air to left. It’s slicing. It’s flying. See you later. Three homers in the inning and it’s 13 to nothing. So here’s Randone. Randone trying to get the ball out of the infield here. Stannic sets. Here’s the patch. Swing line drive. Base hit left field. score from third. Turner’s around third coming home front of the plate and in time. Turner dives in with a winning run. But Curly W’s in the box. Redone has done it. A single left to score two with his third hit of the game. Anthony Renone wins it for the Nationals. Unbelievable. Oh man, we need this energy from y’all for the rest of the year. Uh, go tell your friends. Go tell your families. We need y’all. I’m out. I want to briefly pause here on September 3rd, 2019. The Nationals, now firmly in position to do the previously unthinkable and snag a playoff spot, still have to stick the landing with one more month of winning resilient baseball. The tables have also totally turned on them playing the Mets since the first game I showed you. They’re now the ones in the driver’s seats, and the Mets are scraping and clawing to remain in the playoff race, in grave need of any wins they could get. They seem to be in position to take a big game from the Nats with a strong ninth inning rally to give them a 10 to4 lead headed to the bottom of the ninth. Of the first seven hitters to come to bat for the Nationals, six of them get hits. Only Howie Kendrick’s flyyou remains a blemish thus far on a brewing comeback from 10 to four to 10 to eight with two runners on and catcher Curt Suzuki coming to the plate. 3-2 to Suzuki. Kurt Suzuki see you later. The Nets have won it. Seven runs in the bottom of the ninth. Unbelievable. This is the same team who seemed to be on death’s door a tick over three months ago. Years later, I saw Howie Kendrick one spot in front of me online for coffee at MLB’s winter meetings. I worked up just enough nerve as a lifelong Mets fan to strike up a conversation about the Kurt Suzuki game, a game he obviously smiled and laughed at the mere mention of. For him, that game was a reminder of great times on a great team, doing something that seemed undoable not too long ago. But none of it would matter if they didn’t seal the deal and win in the playoffs. Ground ball to the right side in Pittsburgh. And that’s a wildcard winner for the Nationals. And now we clinch. MLB’s postseason is a gauntlet. It’s a chaotic batch of randomness that distills 162 regular season games into for a team that doesn’t win their division like the Nationals, one game, a best of five series, and two best of seven series. That’s your road to win the World Series. And it all starts with one game, a game the Nationals will host against the Milwaukee Brewers. A team that last year finished one game short of the World Series, still won 89 games this year, and is in the midst of a stretch that as of today sees seven playoff appearances in 8 years. The Brewers are good, deep, and consistent winners. And you have one shot to beat them in advance. Two batters into the game, and you’re already down two nothing. Three up and three down for the Nats in the bottom of the first. And then the Brewers lead off top two with another homer. 3 nothing Milwaukee, which shouldn’t be happening. Max Sherzer is pitching for the Nationals after all. Sherzer has just wrapped up his fifth season in Washington and just had what is probably the least impressive of the five. He still finished third in Sai Young voting and led baseball in the stat that takes ERA and reduces it to the things usually in pitcher control. So, if he was still that good at his lowest, imagine how special it means he’s been thus far in DC. He’s a Hall of Famer in the making and one of the most intimidating players in the sport. In June of this year, he broke his nose bunting a ball off his face in batting practice. With a black eye and a broken nose, he pitched seven shutout innings with 10 strikeouts the very next day. This is the guy you want anchoring a pitching staff. And he does settle down and keep the game within reach for the rest of his time on the mound tonight. But when he leaves after five innings, he passes the baton to the second greatest pitcher in franchise history. Steven Strawber was the first Nationals mear, the most hyped pitching prospect potentially in the entire history of baseball, who came up less than a year after he was drafted, one day short of exactly a year after he was drafted, and looked every bit of the hype. An injury knocks him off the shelf for a year and then he returns to form in his first full healthy season before he was withheld from playoff activity that year so he could rest up and be a piece of future World Series contention. An unprecedented decision in baseball’s history. Never mind that he’s the best pitcher on a good team right then and there. And championships are to be pursued whenever you’re even remotely close to one since success is special and usually temporary. Oh no. They’re so confident they’ll be back and that he’ll be a huge piece of that that they’re willing to take this gamble. Well, here in 2019, the first year in a few years, Strawber has had stable health, he’s still a big part of the team and top five in Sai Young voting and top 15 in overall NLMV MVP voting for 2019. That championship run they were saving his health for just hasn’t come around yet. But you are about to see why the Nationals thought so highly of him. One, two. [Music] [Applause] [Music] On the ground to third and that’ll do it in the eighth. Strawber did his job. He kept the game close. It’s now the eighth inning and the Nationals could still reasonably come back down only two runs and all. They just, you know, have to get it going. Right now, it’s going to be difficult because now they’re facing potentially the best reliever in the National League. At this moment, with two outs in the eighth inning, the Nationals have just a 13% chance to keep their season alive. None of what you’ve seen this whole video matters if they don’t string together a rally soon. In steps, Ryan Zimmerman. Ryan Zimmerman is a man literally nicknamed Mr. National. He was the first player ever drafted by the Washington Nationals and broke into the big leagues that same season. As a 21-year-old, he was the first exciting young homegrown national in team history. A little bit by default, but it was crazy that a kid this young could develop this fast, especially at that time. He was a beacon of light on some of the first nationals teams ever and also on some of the worst nationals teams ever. But in 2019, he’s now the old vet who has been here for nearly the entirety of the Nationals existence as a team since they moved over from Montreal in 2005. Standing in the batters box at Nationals Park, like the hundreds upon hundreds of times he’s done before, a ballpark he actually helped christen on its opening night. Zimmerman has delivered the happy ending for the Nationals in the first game in their beautiful new ballpark. Ryan Zimmerman with a game ending home run. But on this night, all he has to do is keep the line moving. Shattered his bat off a two-1 net. Blooper is going to fall. Runners will be at first and third. Elevated that fast ball. Renome wasn’t going to bite. And they’re loaded. [Music] Wide drive. Base hit to right. That’ll score one. That’ll score two as the ball gets away from Richmond right. That’s going to score three runs and the Washington Nationals have the lead. They have So hang up. They tag him out, but nobody in this joint cares. World, meet Juan Sodto. At this very moment, Juan Sodto is 20 years old. 20. He’s still one of the very best hitters in baseball. And those outside of DC are only now just starting to grasp that. Not old enough to legally purchase a twisted tea, but wise and calm enough to stand in the box against Josh Hater and come up with the hit that puts the Nationals back on top. I don’t care that he’s out. I don’t care about the error in right field. Okay, that’s not true. I feel bad that this play effectively got Tran Gisham banished out of Milwaukee. What I do care about is that on the day Sodto was first called up, big boy 0200 said that he will not hit Josher. Juan Sodto has not only just hit Josh her, he just notched the biggest hit of his life against Josh her. Something that would only further go down in history a few minutes later. To center fieldless back and the Washington Nationals are LA bound. This is the first time in Washington Nationals history that the team has advanced through in a playoff round. Their reward for this is playing a 106 win LA Dodgers team. An LA Dodgers team that has been to the World Series each of the last two years and just had the winningest season in team history to that point. A team with a ton of history. So, this being their winningest group says a lot. At the very least, it’s very clear that the Nets are going to have their hands full. One-1. Huny grounds it to first through the legs of Hendrick. Kicking off the sidewall. The 2-1. Huny drills a base hit to right. Here comes Peterson. Turner’s behind him. Throw to the plate. Not in time. He comes in standing up. The fly ball to right. That one’s well hit. On his way and gone. A home run. And a pinch hit home run for Gavin Lux. And Cole strike three. And the Dodgers shut out the National 6 to nothing. One game down and the Dodgers get to roll out the best pitcher of his generation for game two. Clayton Kershaw. Easily the most accomplished left-handed pitcher of the decade. But who cares? The last time the Nationals saw a generational lefty talent, it didn’t phase them. The two-1 pitch. Swung on. Hit hard and through the hole. A base hit into left field. Turner scores from third. Now the pitch. Reno belts at deep left center field. Bellager going back. Way back. Can he get there? No, it’s off the wall and in play. Eaten around third being waved home. He slides across the plate without a play. Strawber takes the mound again for the second time of the postseason and only gives up his first run after the 17th out he records. He’s lifted from the game after six stellar innings with a three to one lead that the Nationals seem to want to lose. With a fly ball to right, it way back. It’s on its way and it is gone. A home run. Maxy brings the Dodgers back to within one. It’s three to two. Hey, so um I have something weird to show you. Never mind that they seem to want to lose. They’re pulling out all the stops for this one. Mad Max out of the pen in the eighth inning. and he is absolutely dealing. Just please, please win. Yep. You saw Sher to the max here in the eighth. Strikes out the side. Waiting on Hudson. Swings at the first pitch and pops it up behind third. Rendone has room and makes the catch. The only guy on that side of the infield had a long run to make. What a catch. They are loaded. Rogers lead from every base. The center weights and strikes out. The Nationals have tied this National League Division series. Series tied at one. Headed back to DC. Juan Sodto’s first time hitting in DC since his hit that saved the season. Hard to follow that one up right away, but guess I’ll try. That ball is hammered to center back toward that wall and out of here. He’s so good, dude. The Nationals offense stalls for the next few innings. Hyanjin Ryu winds up with a decent outing after giving up the two-run homer to Sodto. The Dodgers offense does not stall and this game very, very quickly gets out of hand. Before you know it, the Nationals are one loss away from the season ending once again. Again, none of this really matters if they don’t win the next two games. The wild card comeback and the crazy regular season turnaround are cool and all, but those kind of things get forgotten pretty quickly in the grand scheme of sports, especially if you lose your last big game of the season. You’ve got one more game in DC, and if you do pick up your win, you get a winner take all showdown back in LA. Sherzer on the bump for game four. Two up and two down for Max Scherzer. And that’ll bring up Justin Turner, the third base. A fly ball to left field. Heading on back is Sodto at the wall and it’s gone. A home run. If you’re going to come back in this game and this series, you need all your biggest players to show up. Which, by the way, it’s amazing that we have yet to actually name the 2019 Nationals best player. Anthony Rendone has quietly been one of the most consistently great baseball players since breaking in with the Nationals six years ago. He finished top five in MVP voting in his first full season. He finished top six in his breakout offensive campaign 3 years later. And this year, what could be his final year in DC since his contract expires at season’s end, he has become an absolute superstar. Tony Tubags, as they call him, since he’s now led the NL in doubles and back-to-back seasons, is now top three in MVP voting. He leads baseball in RBI. He’s top five in baseball and batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage. You need this guy to finally do things that get into the montages of this video. Anthony Randon, here it is. Curveball hit in the air to left center field. This is deep. Batty going back near the wall. He’ll make the catch. Taylor will tag at third. He’ll come in to score the tying run. Anthony Randon just missed a grand slam. The Nationals are on the board and they’ve tied the Dodgers here in the third inning, one to one. Here is Anthony Randome, the man who led the National League in RBI’s this year into left field. That’s going to fall for a hit. Turner around third and the Nets have got the lead. Randone is the current Nationals top hitter and he’s brought the Nationals back in front tonight. But don’t forget about the OG swings and drives one to deep center field. Way back goes to the warning track to the wall. It is a legendary net with a legendary moment. Rendone drives in one more insurance run in the sixth inning to make it 6 to1 nationals. more than enough for Sherzer who blanked the Dodgers altogether after that first inning homer. That score holds and we now have a winner take all game five on our hands. The Dodgers won 13 more games in the regular season than the Nationals did. But they’re both back to zero for one night. One game to decide the fate of both of these radically different teams. One who has been the model of consistency, paving the road the NL playoffs go through for the past couple years. The other has never been to a World Series and was a complete afterthought to be anywhere near tonight’s game just a few months ago. Steven Strawber on the bump in the air to right center field. Adam Eaton goes back. Adam Eaton has no chance. Two-run homer. Dodgers on top of the first. [Music] [Applause] Oh jeez. The fifth inning proves to be a major blow to the Nat’s chances when after first and second, nobody out. Strawber can’t get a bunt down. Trey Turner strikes out swinging and Adam Eaton can’t bring the runners home. This is also the last year of Strawber’s contract by the way, not being able to get the rally started and this could be his last time wearing the uniform. Two guys on with nobody out and nobody scored. The sixth inning begins with Rendone doubling and Sodto immediately bringing him in. Then Howie Kendrick just erases the rally one batter later and old Zim can’t touch a sick Walker Beller curveball. He’s fired up. Nats have just nine outs to work with, down by two. The leadoff guy gets on again in the seventh a little painfully, but what’s even more painful is that again with two base runners on in the inning, nobody scores with Kershaw coming in to get the final out of the frame. Seven innings down, Nationals down 3 to one. No one has gotten the big hit yet. When Anthony Rendone leads off the top of the eighth, the Nationals are given just a 14% chance to save their season. But been there, done that. Rendone in the air to left. Taylor goes back to the wall and it’s gone. Anthony Renone a leadoff homer in the eighth. Now the batter is Juan Sonos. He swings and belts one deep right center field. Way back going and gone. Goodbye. A tremendous game tying home run by one solo. And this game is all even. Now this this is special. Backto back homers and all of a sudden we’re tied. I do not care that Clayton Kershaw has a reputation for being a playoff joker. It is still unbelievable and incredibly impressive to string back-to back homers off him to tie a winner take all playoff game in the eighth inning. The fireworks stop for a little bit here though. It takes another 12 batters for someone in this game to get a hit when Kik Hernandez singles to left field with one out in the bottom of the ninth for the Dodgers. Two very well struck balls later that stop every heart in DC and we’re going to extra innings. Tied at three in a winner take all game. Adam Eaton works a walk to lead off the 10th and bring Rendone back to the plate who rips a ground rule double. A terrible bounce for the Nationals since now Eaton is locked into third base. He can’t try to score on the play. Sodto is intentionally walked to bring Howy Kendrick up with the bases loaded and nobody out. Howie Kendrick, a 36-y old who has been in the major leagues for 14 years in need of the biggest hit of his life. Swinging a fly ball center field deep. Bellator going back to the warning track to the wall. It’s a grand slam. Howie Kendrick has done it. They’re going crazy in the Nationals dugout. Howie Kendrick with a grand slam here in the 10th inning of game five. The Nationals seven. The Dodgers three. Do you believe it? Swing a fly ball shallow center. Racing on his Taylor closing on it. Dives and he caught it. A diving catch ends the series. What a play by Michael Taylor. A diving catch and the Nationals for the first time in their history will play in the National League Championship Series. The Nationals on the brink of going back to their couches. stole another series, knocking off the model team in the entire National League in their own stadium to do it. Before this year, the Nats had never advanced in the playoffs ever. They’ve now advanced twice, one round shy of the World Series. Standing in their way are the St. Louis Cardinals. Not nearly as imposing as the Dodgers, but a different kind of credible threat. If the Dodgers are the current model of consistency, the St. Louis Cardinals need their flowers, too. They have not had back-to-back losing seasons since Dwight Eisenhower was president. You like Ike Aliss Michaelis Miles Michaelis, one of the main Cardinals pitchers the Nets will see in this series. Oh, brother. So, the Cardinals are very fundamentally sound. They’re good at all elements of the game. They won’t beat themselves. Hey, New York Jets, take a lesson from that. For as much credit as we gave the Brewers earlier, this Cardinal team won first place in their division, the Nationals cannot coast off that Dodgers win into the series. They still have plenty of work to do. So, why don’t we show you what happened next straight away, the pitch, swinging a belt to left center field in the gap. This is way back to the warning track to the wall and one hop off the fence. Rounding third is Kendrick. He’ll score as Yan Gomes pulls into second base. Bullpen despite coming into the postseason with the highest ERA ever to Young strikes out on three pitches. That curve ball, that slow change. Right now, he’s really kind of coming at him with that fast ball cut and maybe a few splits. And a swing and a miss. Down he goes. The Cardinals go quickly here in the third inning. Nine retired to start the game for Sanchez. And Howie Kendrick is going to come up against John Brebia in the 10. Swing a line drive center field. Base hit. Howie Kendrick. Eaton will score. Two nothing Nationals. Here’s the O2. Swinging a ground ball rolled to first. Zimmerman has it down to a knee. He’ll step on first. Edal Sanchez has tossed seven hitless shutout innings here at Bush Stadium. This heat tonight. Here’s a payoff and a swing. Oh, what a kiss. Ryan Silverman. Oh my goodness. Two outs and a swing and a line drive into center field. That’s down. Base hit. And the no hitter is over. And now the Cardinals will bring the tying run to the plate. The kick and the pitch. Swinging a ground ball to third. Rendone has it. It stayed down on him. Good play. Throw to Zimmerman. Retires the side. Doolittle gets it done. Now the kick and the two two pitch. He struck him out and a national league championship series game one. Curly W is in the books. Max at 35 years of age gets the ball here in game two. His fourth appearance in the postseason. You know the rightander rocks kick. Sher delivers swing and a miss. Struck him out with a change of Michael Taylor batting eighth in the older will lead off. Had a swing at a high drive to left field. Well hit. Ozuna drifting back toward the warning track to the wall looking up and there it goes. Michael Taylor drops one into left field seats and on the first pitch of the top of the third. The Nationals are on the board and lead the Cardinals here in game two. Here it is. Slider got him swinging. Pitch down and outside and that is strikeout number 11 for Max Scherzer. It’s a record setting drought for the Cardinals. 21 consecutive scoreless innings. Here it comes. Swinging a ground ball to short. Turner has it. Shovels to Kendrick out at second. all day to throw to first. It’s an inning ending. 643 double play. Breaking ball pull on the ground. Fair. A fair ball past the diving first baseman and down the right field line. Adams will score. Here comes Turner. Throw comes to the plate and Turner is in. And they take a 20 series lead. Game three, National League Championship Series. Nationals lead the series two games to none. The first ever LCS game here in the nation’s capital. Line drive. Diving smear by Reno. He pops up. He throws and he is out. What a play. Anthony Reno. Somehow Reno with a diving play to his left. Flat out robs Paul Young for round number one here in the third inning. And Reno just leans out, serves one to left, falling fast. Ozuna in and out of his clothes. And he is around third. Here comes the throw. No tie. Swing a line drive right center field. That’s a base hit. It’s up the gap. It’s going to the wall. Renown scores. Stores. Howie Kendrick clears the bases with a two-run double here on the third inning. They are delirious in Nationals Park. He got a change up. Steven Strawber fans a dozen St. Louis Cardinals over seven inning. The 2-1 swing a high drive to right center field. Well hit this one way back. Fowler looking up at the wall and it is gone. Victor Rob with his first career postseason home run makes it seven to nothing in the nation’s capital. Swinging a highf fly ball left field. Lambleto moving into his right. He is there and he makes the catch. And a curly W’s in the box. The Nationals beat the Cardinals 8 to one. They go up three games to none of the National League Championship Series. And the Nationals have runners on second and third with nobody out here in the bottom of the first inning. Swinging a line drive to the left field line. It is a left field corner. Extra bases for the score. standing without a play into the left field. Young goes on the first pitch. In the to score is Kendrick right behind him. Zimmerman. Five nothing Washington first innings. Swinging a fly ball left field to the line. Ozuna on the run. Can’t get there. Drops in for a base hit. Scoring is Ro seven runs home here in the bottom of the first inning. Here’s the kick now on the pitch. Fast ball is hit in the air to left center field. Rumble is calling for it. He’s under waiting and he makes the catch. He makes the catch. Bang! Soon go the fireworks. A nationally championship winning Curly W is in the box. We’ll have a World Series in the nation’s capital [Applause] from a 3.4% 4% chance to make the playoffs to a World Series appearance. The 2019 Nationals are unbelievable. Making absolute light work of the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS, playing one of the cleanest and most overpowering series I can remember. The deep playoff run the Nationals saved Steven Strawber for 7 years ago is happening. And this is the first World Series appearance in franchise history. Waiting for them in the Fall Classic is the best team in all of baseball. The 2019 Houston Astros are one of the most eyepoppingly dominant baseball teams ever constructed. They have maybe the two best pitchers in the entire world. Sai Young Award winner and future Turn Your Brain Off first Bout Hall of Famer Justin Verlander and Garrett Cole who struck out 326 batters and has not taken a loss since May 22nd. And everyone seems to forget how good he was according to every Twitter account of all time, which about the May 22nd thing. Remember that game Carlos Gomez homerred in to sink the Nats playoff odds to 3.4%. That was on May 23rd. Garrett Cole has not taken a loss since before that even happened. And he wasn’t even the most accomplished 2019 pitcher the Nats have waiting for them. In terms of hitting, the Astros are rocking not one, not two, but seven, 25% above league average hitters by OPS plus. Altuve, Koreah, Bregman, Alvarez, Springer, Brantley, and Guriel. Oh my goodness. And baby Kyle Tucker is also here, by the way. And he winds up being better than like half of these guys ever were just a handful of years later. They famously and totally not controversially won the World Series in 2017. They’re much much better this time around. The Nationals will have their work cut out for them and then some. Traveling to Houston for the start of the series. Max Scherzer versus Garrett Cole. each the perfect guy for their team to try and set a winning tone for the series. Cole flexes his muscle to end the first inning, carving through Randon and Sodo, even after Trey Turner managed to get the second base before an out was ever recorded, keeping the Nats off the board. Meanwhile, the Astros offense shows why I glazed them so much a minute or two ago, bringing two runs in on their first chance to do so. Speaking of first chances, who would be the perfect guy to drive in the first ever World Series run for the Washington Nationals [Applause] back at the wall and it is caught. Zimmerman tees off here in the second inning. It’s a two to one ball game and that was blasted. UNK still got it, baby. Okay, so I’m going to hold us here for just a second to do some overanalysis and slight agism. If Ank still got it, those who enjoy the premise of Logan’s run need to be accommodated, too, right? Equal opportunity on both ends of the agism spectrum. Sure, 35-year-old team icons can hit World Series home runs all they want, but you know what every rational baseball fan was thinking in this moment? third youngest player you saw in a hit clean up in a World Series and he just cleaned up. Wow, he is so good, man. The Nats string together a huge rally one inning later, capped off by who else? Lon Sodto. A 5-2 lead is nice and all, but against this lineup, it’s definitely a little close for comfort. They definitely cannot be taken lightly as they try to chip away. Four of this team’s final five outs were loud, scary contact, but nobody in DC cares. The Washington Nationals have stolen game one in Houston. Game two against Verlander sees the Nats firing on all cylinders right out of the gate. A walk, a single, and a rendone double makes it two nothing before Verlander even gets an out. And with Strawber on the hill, Washington has to smell blood in the water to claim all the momentum before even getting a chance to go back to DC. There it goes. He’s back. Game tie. Well, that’s um certainly not ideal. Both pitchers seem to realize they’re really good immediately after trading first inning two spots. Only one runner even reaches third base over the next five innings. And that’s just as much because of an error as much as it is on the pitching. So now that we’re in the late innings of this game, pressure is about to start making diamonds. When you have the chance to go into a big bad opponent’s home and steal two games, you need to strike while the iron is hot. Strawber has kept you in this game. So like do something. Here’s one hammered into left off the bat of Suzuki and gone. Nationals jump back on top. It’s 3-2 here in the seventh. That’s into center field and a couple more will score. Breaking ball chopped to third. Tough play. Sing the safe. Throw gets away. Two more ones cross. That counts as something. The Washington Nationals are halfway to a World Series championship before even getting to play the first World Series game ever at Nationals Park. I would characterize game three of the 2019 World Series as one of missed opportunities for the Nationals. First two get on in the bottom of the second strikeout looking in double play. One out triple in the fourth to get the tying run at third base. pitcher can’t get a bunt down and ground out. Two guys on for Zim. Strike out. Basically, the theme of the game was the Nationals not cashing in on any opportunities. Two games to one now. In game four, they didn’t really even have opportunities to speak of. That’s into left center field and will put Houston on top. He gets down. Alupe will score over to third is Brantley. A first pitch swinging. It’s one to nothing Houston on the RBI by Bregman. Houston has been feisty in the first inning in this series. A great play by Renome to his feet. They yield a run and the throw to first is not in time. It’s two nothing Houston. [Applause] You know what’s even sadder? Game five was even less worth a mention. Another big loss. Another game they had no chance in. They are now one loss away from the season ending. You had the best team in baseball, maybe the best baseball team of the last decade or two, totally on the ropes. You beat them twice in their stadium and had three games back in front of your own crowd. And not only did you lose the three games, that’s putting it lightly. You were outscored 19-3 in the three games. 19 to3. And you only faced Garrick Cole once. That’s against the Astros number three and four starters in two of the games. Sodto hit a solo homer in game five. Only two other players even had hits in the game. No offense to speak of and no momentum to speak of either headed back to Houston. It looks more and more like this game could be a funeral against Justin Verlander and the wind has totally been taken out of your sales. You had to take care of business at home to feel any shred of confidence heading back on the road and you failed. Oh, and not only that, Sherzer didn’t make his game five start due to a neck injury. You better hope all the cortisone in the world makes him available for one of these next two games. Away we go. [Music] Right side base hit. Here comes Turner. Good start for the Nationals in game number six. Because the 2019 Astros are a buzzsaw, you couldn’t even enjoy an early lead for more than like 4 seconds. And then in innings three and four, you’re back to playing the have multiple runners on base but don’t actually score any runs game. Time is running out right now. [Music] That’s down the line. It is gone. Way out of here to tie this game at two. All right, Adam Eaton. Way to keep the video going. Nats tie the game two to two. It’s the middle innings though. You don’t have forever to keep going, but it’s huge to get yourself even with time to spare, especially against this team, though. You have to add on. Holy Wanoto. That is Juan Sodto’s fifth home run of the postseason. And it feels like five home runs this time around. He turned 21 years old 4 days ago. Happy belated, Juan. Way belated. Rendone adds four RBI before this game ends with a double and a home run. The biggest power threats in the lineup showing up when this team is desperate for its mere survival in the series. An outstanding response to adversity and keeping this truly unfathomable run alive. And wait, no way. Bottom of the ninth inning here at Midway Park in Houston and Steven Strawber to the mound. Off the glove of Strawber for the out. [Music] Steven Strawber did not allow any more runs in this game after the Bregman homer. He is now on the mound in the ninth inning of game six. He is having the playoff run that seemed destined long ago and it has saved the season. Shutting the door on one of the greatest offenses ever constructed when the stakes could not be any higher. When he leaves the mound after 8 and a3 innings, it has to feel like something that was dreamed of in DC since the moment he first put on the uniform. He has brought this team to a winner take all game seven of the World Series. The kind of game everyone dreams of since the moment they first hold a plastic bat. And Mad Max will take the hill. Guriel will lead it off against Max 2. Guriel lines it deep to left field going back as Sodto looking up. See you later. [Music] Got him swinging. First strike out of the ball game. What a start in game seven. Biggest start of his run. And he is through five. Kareah grounds it past the dive of the third base and down the left field line. Furiel scores on his way to third. Alvarez will throw to third. Not in time. RBI for Korea and a two nothing Astros lead for the first five and a half innings of this game. It looks like the Astros death star is just too much. The Nationals lineup only picks up one hit, a Janoto single to lead off the second inning. And while Sherzer statline looks okay at face value, that’s not the kind of performance your ace needs to give in the highest stakes of baseball that exist. Could you imagine if all of this wound up being for nothing on the last possible day of the season? Patrick Corbin is on the mound for the Nats in the sixth inning of game seven, and you might be stunned it’s taken me this long to say his name. Corbin was signed by the Nats before the season to a six-year $140 million deal. And most people found that questionable. Oh my goodness. 6 years 140. Yeah. He responded by being one of Major League Baseball’s best left-handed pitchers this season, pitching over 200 innings and posting an erra 38% above league average that season. Not quite as good as Sherzer and Strawber, but among the very best possible number three starters you could get. In the postseason, his role was completely reinvented. I haven’t mentioned him by name yet on purpose, and it was because his role was basically to be the silent assassin. When there’s trouble, you know who to call. Not Teen Titans, not Ghostbusters, Patrick Corbin. Corbin started game one in LA and then came out of the bullpen in games three and five of that series, picking up huge clutch outs late in that pivotal final game. He came out of the bullpen for one batter in the ninth inning of game two in St. Louis and did his job. He then was the winning pitcher as the starter in game four, returned for big outs out of the bullpen in game one of the World Series, provided six innings of length to save the bullpen as the starter in game four, and is now back on the mound in the do or die game seven. And I’ll spoil a little bit of the story here. Corbin gives this team three shutout innings of relief tonight. A relief outing this team desperately needs in the late innings of this game to keep the Astros off the board from inning six to eight. Without Corbin, the Nationals team here is nowhere near this moment. But the moment is here. The moment you need to flip the script and win a World Series. That is a rocket to left and the lead is cut in half. Rendone makes it two to one. Here is Sodto takes a walk. DH Howi Kendrick coming up. Howie Kendrick. The same Howie Kendrick who hit a grand slam to send this team out of LA. The same Howie Kendrick who is playing in an MLB game counting playoff games for the 1,656th time in his career. The same Howie Kendrick I somehow stood behind in line in real life waiting for coffee. He grinded away for 14 seasons and already saved this team from elimination once. He only has one season left after this for his career. But now he’s going to have the kind of moment every player dreams about. That’s down the right field line into the corner. This ball is gone for a home run. Nationals on top. Howie Kendrick has made it 32. 3 to2 Nationals. Wow. But the beast has risen. They’re not done yet. That’s a one out walk. There goes a runner thrown in by Jermaine. Here’s Sodto. Base hit into right. Eaton will come around third base and score. Sodto delivers again. And it’s 4-2 Nationals here in the eighth. That is up the middle for base hit. And Zimmerman is on to start the ninth. Ro into shallow center. Morris won’t get there. Two on and one out in the ninth. He did not swing and the bases are loaded. I want to stop here at this Adam Eaton at bat in the ninth inning. The bases are loaded with one out. The Nationals are up by two runs, but two runs is very doable for this Astros team. Even in just one inning, they have three all-star hitters due up to start this next inning. Anyway, with more guys on the bases, Eaton has a chance to put this game and this series out of reach. any kind of hit and the lead becomes much much more preservable. Any kind of hit and the Nationals will more than likely become champions. That is up the hook. One run scores. That’s Combmes. They hold now send him as Morris kicks it in center. Two more runs and it’s 62. Job done. And a few moments later, what was once seen as truly undoable for this group of guys comes to reality. [Applause] [Music] We are the world champions. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I never mentioned what the Nationals World Series winning odds were at the time of their playoff odds being 3.4%. And that was on purpose. We don’t really know the exact number, by the way. It’s that low. wanted to wait though until after the impossible already happened to reveal just how unlikely this moment, this celebration you’re seeing right now was at the darkest hour of this team season. Their world championship odds were less than 0.1%. Worse than 999 to1 odds, they still did it. And that’s not all the crazy things they overcame to get here statistically. For one, they became the first champion ever to have all four of their World Series wins come on the road. They had the second biggest abyss of games under 500 totally washed away by any champion in league history and the biggest win-loss turnaround in over a century. Even in this World Series, at its worst, the Nationals clung to just a 13% probability of coming back and winning. They busted every single one of these numbers and hoisted the trophy, the first trophy in team history. I think about two players in particular in this moment. Ryan Zimmerman, essentially a day one Washington National, grinding through the lowest of the low this team faced until their first championship. For a man who nearly saw it all for this organization, that has to be special. And of course, Steven Strawber. This was the World Series trophy. Steven Strawber seemed prophesized to get them when they held him out of a playoff run seven years ago. That never actually happened. He is now the first World Series MVP in franchise history, and he gave it all up for that chance. Strawber opted out of his contract with the Nationals after the season and he was rewarded for his efforts with a new deal for the highest annual value for any pitcher in baseball history to that point. Something he truly earned off the back of his playoff contributions. The absolutely heartbreaking and horrendous outcome that followed though was just eight more big league games for the rest of his career. Strawber’s body more than paid the price for pushing himself to the limit these playoffs. He battled severe nerve damage for the rest of his career. Something he’s going to battle for the rest of his life. The most devastating physical ailment a pitcher could suffer in the modern game. By winter of 2022, his rehab bullpen sessions could not get off the ground at all. Three times he had to stop throwing ramp up bullpens because the pain was too much. He literally could not play baseball anymore. His body made that an impossibility. But because of his large contract, it turned into a messy behindthe-scenes fiasco where the Nationals created a petty pissing match with him over letting him retire with the money he signed for, cancelling a retirement ceremony planned for him as a power move. That went over about as well as you’d expect, especially because the Nationals made the mind-boggling and inexplicable decision not to have any insurance on Strawber’s contract. All that money was 100% owed to him regardless of if his body was physically capable of throwing a baseball or not. It’s largely expected that no Washington National will ever wear his number again, as they shouldn’t. This franchise owes everything to this man, and that makes his tragic career ending hit even harder. But you know what? I’m not sure he’d change a thing. Six years later, the Washington Nationals have not had a winning season since this championship. Manager Davy Martinez was fired in 2025. The last onfield link of this team cut for good. They lack any and all identity. They lack direction from the top down and constantly struggle to get anything right. Their pitching struggles, their hitting struggles, and their defense struggles. Nearly any good player they’ve had the last three seasons comes from when they traded Juan Sodto away. You heard that correctly. 3 years after establishing himself as one of the most special players to ever live, the unprecedented happened. The 2022 Nationals decided they were so far gone from success and so far away from future success that it made sense to cash out on the last 2 and 1/2 years of Juan Sodto’s contract. No player this good and this accomplished at that time of their career was ever traded away until Juan Sodto was shipped off to the San Diego Padres’s. And that’s the only thing this franchise has nailed since their World Series win. Believe it or not, their return for Sodto has netted three different all-star players for this team. All of whom look essential to any shot this team will have to win in DC anytime this decade. They’ve struggled to find any kind of consistent, reliable, long-term player for more than like a month or two, not named Sodo or anyone they got for Sodo. Since being on top of the baseball world, Juan turned down what would have been the largest deal in MLB history. Shortly before the trade, making it a lot easier for the Nats to stomach cashing out on him from a logistical and financial point of view. And to Juan’s credit, he was absolutely right to bet on himself here. He’s now signed with the division rival Mets for 15 years and well over 300 million more than he was ever going to get as a national. Patrick Corbin’s remaining time as a national was potentially as the least effective pitcher in baseball. He accumulated 5.1 baseball reference war in 2019. Really good value. From 2020 through 2024, negative 2.4. He led the National League in losses three times and MLB as a whole in hits and home runs allowed three times, too. For five of the six years he pitched as a national, he was one of the most easily clobberable pitcher in the sport. Without him, this team never would have held a trophy. It’s a classic is a title worth everything that comes after dilemma. And speaking of dilemmas, oh my god, Anthony Rendone. Rendone signed a 7-year, $245 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels after the 2019 World Series. It may be the most criticized contract in baseball history. Each of the last five seasons of this deal, Randon has missed over 50% of possible games to play. He’s actually advocated for less baseball to be played around the league in general. He’s physically confronted fans on camera who call him a He said baseball isn’t a priority to him. And on top of that, his hitting has completely fallen off a cliff. No one seems to remember nationals. Anthony Rendone, the underrated superstar who earned a top three MVP finish and willed them to a nearly mathematically impossible championship. They see, or rather don’t see because he’s hardly on the field, Angel’s Rendone. A shockingly far cry from what used to be. But what used to be is something all of these men strived their whole lives for and would never change a thing about. Today at Nationals Park in DC, photos of the 2019 run are plastered everywhere, as they should be. It is the crowning achievement of baseball for this team. and this city and it is treated as such. Many fans still cling to that as the 2020s nationals resemble a te-ball team more and more. And those same fans would have gladly signed up for a decade of dysfunction in exchange for that championship. That championship is something everyone in sports would die for. Because what goes down in history isn’t the lack of an identity since the championship. It’s being the team that got the trophy in the first place. This team is one of the greatest stories in baseball history. A team with over a th00and to one odds of winning a championship, defeating one of the most dominant collections of talent in baseball history, two times over in the same month. And on top of that, two other ball clubs that proved to be models of consistency in their times was no margin of error at all for the 2019 Washington Nationals. And they still did it. And strangely, we wouldn’t find out for another couple months just how big of heroes this team would actually be in the public consciousness. of teams that won a championship, it was the single toughest road any champion ever experienced. No matter what, that cannot be taken away. No matter what comes of the future for the Washington Nationals, they will always have this [Music] Yeah. Heat.

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