{"id":12980,"date":"2016-10-12T09:01:19","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T13:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=12980"},"modified":"2016-10-12T09:02:21","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T13:02:21","slug":"game-5-by-hook-or-by-crook-we-got-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=12980","title":{"rendered":"Game 5; by hook or by crook, we got here."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_11069\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ScherzerMax-covered-in-chocolate-via-thesportsquotient.com_.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11069\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11069\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11069\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ScherzerMax-covered-in-chocolate-via-thesportsquotient.com_-300x208.jpg\" alt=\"Maybe they'll bring back out chocolate if Scherzer wins game 5. Photo via thesportsquotient.com\" width=\"300\" height=\"208\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ScherzerMax-covered-in-chocolate-via-thesportsquotient.com_-300x208.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ScherzerMax-covered-in-chocolate-via-thesportsquotient.com_.jpg 628w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-11069\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maybe they&#8217;ll bring back out chocolate if Scherzer wins game 5. Photo via thesportsquotient.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t really do a pre-NLDS prediction piece for this series. \u00a0A combination of work and life events\u00a0conspired against me.<\/p>\n<p>But if you had asked me what I thought a week ago about the Nats-Dodgers NLDS, I would have said the series would have basically gone\u00a0like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nats lose to <strong>Kershaw<\/strong> in Game 1 because he&#8217;s Kershaw<\/li>\n<li>Nats rebound in Game 2 and handle the veteran <strong>Hill<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Nats throw their sole lefty who dominates the lefty-feeble Dodgers line-up<\/li>\n<li>Dodgers then panic down 2-1 and throw Kershaw on short rest, who dominates us again.<\/li>\n<li>&#8230; leading to the inevitable Game 5 back home.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now &#8230; the above description isn&#8217;t exactly how these games have gone, but the end result has been the same. \u00a0The Nats hit Kershaw in Game 1 &#8230; but the Dodgers hit <strong>Scherzer<\/strong> harder; that was no 2-1 squeaker. \u00a0Game 2 was salvaged when perhaps the weakest hitter on the roster clubbed a 3-run homer into a 25mph wind, energizing the stadium and the team to a degree i&#8217;ve never felt before. \u00a0<strong>Gonzalez<\/strong> certainly did not &#8220;shut down&#8221; the Dodgers in Game 3, but the Nats bats came alive at the end to turn it into a 4hour 12min laugher. \u00a0In game 4 Kershaw did indeed go on short rest, and up until the 7th looked pretty dominant, but in a recurring theme for him in the post-season, he went one inning too long, loaded the bases in the 7th and was charged with a total of 5 runs on the night despite 11 strikeouts. \u00a0Nonetheless, the Nats bullpen (which it should be noted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/postseason\/2016_NLDS2.shtml\">did not give up a single run<\/a> in the first three games) finally faltered, with\u00a0<strong>Treinen<\/strong> coughing up the game winner in the bottom of the 8th to long-time Nats nemesis\u00a0<strong>Chase Utley<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>So here we are. \u00a0Game 5 tomorrow 10\/13\/16. \u00a0<strong>Max Scherzer<\/strong> on full rest versus\u00a0<strong>Rich Hill<\/strong> on three days rest thanks to the Saturday cancellation. \u00a0 Hill, 37-yr old veteran journeyman with a career resurgence, has thrown precisely one game on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/split.cgi?id=hillri01&amp;year=Career&amp;t=p\">3 days rest in his career<\/a>: he gave up 5 runs on 3 hits and 4 walks in just 3IP that day. \u00a0 No offense to \u00a0Hill, but lets hope for that line again and for the Nats to get into the Dodgers incredibly taxed bullpen.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Scherzer has to figure out a way to keep the ball in the park. \u00a0And he probably needs to go 6 or 7 innings to help a bullpen that has now thrown 17 2\/3rds innings in four games.<\/p>\n<p>How about the Offense for this team so far? \u00a0 Hitting .259 as a team despite going against Kershaw twice and a bunch of one-out relievers most of the rest of the time. \u00a0 The veterans have really come to play: <strong>Murphy<\/strong>, <strong>Zimmerman<\/strong> and <strong>Werth<\/strong> \u00a0all stepping up and crushing the ball. \u00a0Youngster\u00a0<strong>Turner<\/strong> at the top hitting .353 &#8230; but 10 of his 11 outs have been punchouts. \u00a0<strong>Harper<\/strong> is just 3-14 with 4 walks &#8230; but to be fair, 13 of those plate appearances have come against lefties and 3 more\u00a0have come against LA closer\u00a0<strong>Jansen &#8230;\u00a0<\/strong>not exactly the easiest series for Harper.<\/p>\n<p>Who has not acquitted themselves at the plate? \u00a0<strong>Espinosa<\/strong>; 1-11 with 8 punch outs and being outright replaced in game 3. \u00a0I read elsewhere, this may change my &#8220;next year opinion&#8221; on Espinosa; he has looked beyond helpless at the plate despite being a switch hitter. \u00a0Remind me of this sentence this coming off-season if I start making arguments for keeping him and keeping Turner in center. \u00a0\u00a0<strong>Rendon<\/strong> has had a &#8220;loud&#8221; 3-16 series; loud in that he has 4 RBI and a monster homer. \u00a0<strong>Severino<\/strong> is 1-9 but has been putting the ball in play and has not looked overmatched.<\/p>\n<p>Can&#8217;t wait for game 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I didn&#8217;t really do a pre-NLDS prediction piece for this series. \u00a0A combination of work and life events\u00a0conspired against me. But if you had asked me what I thought a week ago about the Nats-Dodgers NLDS, I would have said the series would have basically gone\u00a0like this: Nats lose to Kershaw in Game 1 because [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2036],"tags":[185,1693,164,399,426,1859,135,385,115,2676,1037,2000,2773,36,2426],"class_list":["post-12980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","category-post-season","tag-anthony-rendon","tag-blake-treinen","tag-bryce-harper","tag-chase-utley","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-daniel-murphy","tag-danny-espinosa","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-jayson-werth","tag-kenley-jansen","tag-max-scherzer","tag-pedro-severino","tag-rich-hill","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-trea-turner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12980"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12983,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12980\/revisions\/12983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}