October 7, 2019 – Nats 6, Dodgers 1 (NLDS Game 4) – Nationals Park

https://www.mlb.com/nationals/news/max-scherzer-nationals-force-nlds-game-5-vs-dodgers

 

Weather: 80 degrees, Partly Cloudy.

Wind: 3 mph, Out To CF.

Umpires: HP--Eddings, 1B--Marquez, 2B--Gibson, 3B--Little, LF--Baker, RF--Barrett.

Time: 3:24

Attendance: 36,847

 

Since none of the superstitious behaviors we carried over from the wild card win worked for the NLDS, we changed direction for the win-or-go-home Game 4. Took Metro instead of driving. Brought in subs rather than eating before the game. Different attire. New rally towels. Something seemed to work.

 

In some ways, this was the mirror image of the loss the previous night; this time it was the Nats who put up one big inning after the opposing starter had left the game. Rich Hill, as expected, didn’t last long, leaving with 2 outs in the 3^rd, although the Nats failed to take advantage of the 3 walks he issued in the inning, plating only a single run. Their explosion came in the bottom of the 5^th, when Julio Urena replaced Kenta Maeda on the mound for the Dodgers. A Turner single, Eaton sacrifice, and Rendon single gave the Nats the lead. After Soto popped out, Kendrick singled Rendon to third, finishing the outing for Urias. Zim then sent the crowd into a frenzy by greeting Pedro Baez with a three-run homer to center. Rendon finished the scoring an inning later with his third RBI of the game.

 

On the pitching front, Max brought back memories of his wild-card-game struggles when he served up a home run to Justin Turner with two outs in the top of the first. He recovered nicely, however, getting through the next 5 innings without much difficulty while keeping his pitch count down. He did struggle in the 7^th, walking two men with one on and one out, but he retired the next two batters, completing his mission nicely. Doolittle and Hudson finished things off, sending the series back to LA for a winner-take-all Game 5.

 

As predicted, the weather took a turn around 8:00, with quickly falling temps, quite a bit of wind, plus off-and-on rain for the rest of the evening. Fortunately it was never bad enough to stop the game, although many of us sought out shelter in various covered areas of the park.

October 6, 2019 – Dodgers 10, Nats 4 (NLDS Game 3) – Nationals Park

https://www.mlb.com/nationals/news/patrick-corbin-nationals-fall-to-dodgers-in-game-3

 

Weather: 72 degrees, Overcast.

Wind: 3 mph, R To L.

Umpires: HP--Barrett, 1B--Eddings, 2B--Marquez, 3B--Gibson, LF--Little, RF--Baker.

Time: 3:58

Attendance: 43,423

 

Well, we tried to keep as much as we could the same from our routine for Tuesday’s wild card game win. Same restaurant, same food/drink orders, mostly the same attire. We again switched seats during the seventh-inning stretch and brought out our “magic mints” in the eighth. It wasn’t nearly enough.

 

The evening started off well. Juan Soto got the home team off to a 2-run lead in the bottom of the 1^st, making a winner of the game’s “Dinger Of The Day” contestant in the process. Anibal Sanchez mostly baffled the Dodgers with his eclectic pitch assortment, fanning 9 and not allowing a run until Max Muncy hit a solo shot in the 5^th. Admittedly, the Nats failed to take advantage of scoring chances in the 4^th and 5^th, but they still held their one-run lead after 5.

 

Inasmuch as Washington possesses only two trustworthy relief pitchers, no one was surprised to see Patrick Corbin (who started Game 1 on Thursday, tossing 107 pitches) start to warm up in the 5^th and come in for the 6^th; after all, Stephen Strasburg had fired 3 scoreless frames in the Wild Card Game, and Scherzer struck out the side in the 8^th inning of NLDS Game 2 in LA. Ideally Corbin could go for two innings, followed in some order by Doolittle and Hudson, to finish off the victory and give the Nats a 2-1 series lead.

 

Things looked promising when Corbin fanned the next two batters after a leadoff single by Cody Bellinger, but they then collapsed with a thud, the key blows being a two-run Russell Martin double to give the visitors a 3-2 lead, and a pinch-double two batters later by Enrique Hernandez to extend the lead to 5-2. Following an intentional walk to Muncy, Wander Suero entered the game to face Justin Turner, who promptly put one out of the park to double the lead.

 

The Nats were given a great chance to get back in it in the bottom of the inning thanks to Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly, who gave up a single, three walks and a wild pitch, finally exiting with no outs, the bases loaded and one run in. Asdrubal Cabrera delivered a sac fly off Julio Urias to score another run, but Kendrick managed to kill the rally by getting caught between second and third for the second out. Washington could scrounge up only one more baserunner during the final 3 innings, and Hunter Strickland put the punctuation mark on the team’s bullpen woes by giving up a 2-run homer to Martin in the ninth (his 9^th HR allowed in 13 post-season innings).

 

We wound up parking at L’Enfant Plaza: quite a hike, but easy to get into, and surprisingly easy to get out of.