{"id":16258,"date":"2019-10-31T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T14:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16258"},"modified":"2019-10-31T10:00:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T14:00:58","slug":"unbelievably-the-2019-nats-are-ws-champs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16258","title":{"rendered":"Unbelievably, the 2019 Nats are WS champs!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_16259\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Natswinws-2019-via-nytimes.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16259\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16259\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16259\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Natswinws-2019-via-nytimes-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"They did it. Photo via nytimes.com\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Natswinws-2019-via-nytimes-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Natswinws-2019-via-nytimes.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16259\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">They did it. Photo via nytimes.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The final\u00a0 unbelievable act in an unbelievable season has come to pass.\u00a0 The cardiac kids overcame yet another 2019 playoff elimination in-game deficit (their 5th of the post-season I believe) to rally in the late innings for an improbable win.<\/p>\n<p>Only this time, it was in Game 7 of a World Series that they were 2-1 underdogs in at the start and in which they got swept on home soil.<\/p>\n<p>Game thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Max Scherzer<\/strong> pitched better than i thought he would, but labored to get through 5 innings on more than 100 pitches.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Zack Greinke<\/strong> was pitching the absolute game of his life, and I thought this team was done for in the 6th.<\/li>\n<li>For all the scorn heaped on\u00a0<strong>Patrick Corbin<\/strong> &#8230; damn what an outing.\u00a0 Three scoreless innings, faces just one over the min, gets the W in game 7.\u00a0 Bravo.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Anthony Rendon<\/strong><strong>:\u00a0<\/strong>he continued to make himself a lot of money with his off-season.\u00a0 Same with\u00a0<strong>Strasburg<\/strong> (a subject for another day).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Kendrick<\/strong> finally came alive to win it for the team.\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Eaton<\/strong> had a heck of a game.\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Soto<\/strong>; well, nobody in America will be surprised by Soto again after this post-season.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, some more detailed thoughts on the absolute butchering of the pitching management by Houston&#8217;s manager\u00a0<strong>A.J. Hinch<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why would you possibly take out a guy in Greinke who had completely flummoxed the Nats lineup for 6+ innings in that situation?\u00a0 He was on just 80 pitches.\u00a0 Yes he&#8217;d given up a homer to\u00a0<strong>Rendon<\/strong>, and yes he&#8217;d walked\u00a0<strong>Soto<\/strong> &#8230; but that&#8217;s the two most dangerous hitters in the lineup.\u00a0 Once you get past Soto, you have to favor your chances against our 5-9 (with all due respect to\u00a0<strong>Kendrick<\/strong> of course).\u00a0 I couldn&#8217;t believe our fortunes there, to move on from Greinke and get into the suspect bullpen.\u00a0 Was Greinke gassed?\u00a0 On 80 pitches?\u00a0 Was he giving up a ton of sharp hit balls?\u00a0 Rendon&#8217;s homer was hit hard, sure, but it was also a rare mistake from a guy who had been painting corners all night.\u00a0 You pitch around Soto b\/c you don&#8217;t want him to beat\u00a0 you.\u00a0 I just couldn&#8217;t believe this over-managing move.<\/li>\n<li>Then, instead of bringing\u00a0<strong>Gerritt Cole<\/strong> or his closer &#8230; he goes with\u00a0<strong>Will Harris.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Ok.\u00a0 I guess you could have looked at\u00a0 Harris&#8217; numbers prior to this inning this post season and said, &#8220;oh that&#8217;s their stopper.&#8221;\u00a0 But he&#8217;s clearly\u00a0 not better than Greinke.\u00a0 So it was karma when 3 pitches later Kendrick gets a lucky homer off the foul pole.\u00a0 Just amazing turn of luck.<\/li>\n<li>NOW he goes to his closer\u00a0<strong>Osuna<\/strong>.\u00a0 Still no Cole, who was idly throwing the ball in the pen.<\/li>\n<li>Then, in the next inning,\u00a0he leaves in his one-inning closer to runout of gas and give up another run.<\/li>\n<li>THEN in the next inning he cycles through more of his ineffective bullpen, who leaks two more demoralizing runs to make the 9th a coronation.<\/li>\n<li>Cole?\u00a0 Sitting on his ass in the bullpen.\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Peacock<\/strong>?\u00a0 burned last night.\u00a0 he eventually goes with 4th starter\u00a0<strong>Jose Urquidy<\/strong> to stop the bleeding, 5 runs too late.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I was texting along with friends throughout all of this, calling the debacle as it happened.\u00a0 Houston deserved their fate here for pulling an effective starter 30 pitches too early.\u00a0 \u00a0 And the Nats made them pay.<\/p>\n<p>Go Nats!\u00a0 This is a long time coming.\u00a0 A long time coming for everyone who was there at the beginning, helped support this team for years before they actually began trying, who stuck with them as they tried to find their way.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The final\u00a0 unbelievable act in an unbelievable season has come to pass.\u00a0 The cardiac kids overcame yet another 2019 playoff elimination in-game deficit (their 5th of the post-season I believe) to rally in the late innings for an improbable win. Only this time, it was in Game 7 of a World Series that they were [&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":[3142,2983,185,35,4280,1940,4283,3314,1037,1855,4282,38,4281,254],"class_list":["post-16258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","category-post-season","tag-adam-eaton","tag-aj-hinch","tag-anthony-rendon","tag-brad-peacock","tag-gerritt-cole","tag-howie-kendrick","tag-jose-urquidy","tag-juan-soto","tag-max-scherzer","tag-patrick-corbin","tag-roberta-osuna","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-will-harris","tag-zack-greinke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16258","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=16258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16261,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16258\/revisions\/16261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}