Even with Max Scherzer struggling to get through five innings it didn’t matter. Or even without Anthony Rendon or Howie not having big nights it didn’t matter. It didn’t even matter when centerfielder Victor Robles lost his glove at a key juncture on a pop fly to shallow center.
If this had been a post season game with Clayton Kershaw on the mound the Dodgers would have found a way a to lose this game twice.
Reason doesn’t matter currently as these Washington Nationals are on fire and have DESTINY in their hip pockets so far this post season.
Manager Dave Martinez used his bullpen brilliantly on a night when Scherzer was lucky to survive five innings.
Martinez went with Patrick Corbin, Tanner Rainey, Daniel Hudson and then closed it with Doolittle. It went to script and the Nationals won 5-4.
I’m sure coming in the Nationals would have been gleeful just getting a split in these first two games. But now they enter Game 2 tonight with Strasburg on the mound to take on Verlander and Altuve’s Astros.
Martinez needs Strasburg to be special tonight. He needs him to go seven innings or so as he doesn’t have to go with someone like Fernando Rodney early in the game.
But Martinez probably feels pretty good right now given the fact his team is playing the best postseason ball of any team in recent memory.
We should have known this after the improbable comeback against the Brewers in the wild card game.
All of us should have known these aren’t Bryce Harpers’s Washington Nationals. That train left the station.
In Dead Solid Perfect on his way to winning the U.S. Open…Kenny Lee said, “Piss on destiny. Fairways and greens.”
So far these Nationals are hitting greens and fairways…and making all the putts that matter.