Harper certainly liked Zimmerman’s homer. Photo via fanragsports.com
It was looking pretty gloomy heading into the 8th inning. Trea Turner had just struck out for the 8th straight time (ok that was an exaggeration, but he is 0-8 with four punch-outs from the lead-off spot this series) with the bases loaded and the Nats had gone 17 innings and scored precisely one lucky run (Anthony Rendon‘s excuse-me-opposite field homer).
Then Carl Edwards Jr. hung a curve-ball to one of baseball’s best sluggers. And I mean, he frigging hung it. It came up to the plate on a big ole loop and Bryce Harper, who has been hitting majestic homers to the upper deck in RF since he was in his teens, did not miss. Tie Game, and the curious bullpen usage of the 8th inning by Joe Maddon continued a few more batters, enabling Ryan Zimmerman to hit one *just out* of left field off a lefty reliever to cap off a 5 run 8th inning come back and seal the victory.
(Note, per comments, yes this definitely cracks my all time top 10 games list … we’ll publish it again in the off-season. I think i’ve got it 8th or so).
So we head to Chicago with a 1-1 split and disaster averted. How do things look in Chicago? Lets look at the presumed starters here on out:
- Game 3: Max Scherzer vs Jose Quintana: Scherzer is (hopefully) healed from his hamstring issue, and hopefully can get the Nats the win they need him to get. Meanwhile, lefty Quintana has been decent for the Cubs since his acquisition, posting a 3.74 ERA for the team (which, ironically, is exactly the same ERA as Max’s career post-season ERA). Not one current National has ever batted against him, so I’d expect some struggles at the plate from our team, especially our big lefties. But, we also have some important RH batters who should benefit from facing a lefty starter who doesn’t have as good of stuff as Jon Lester has. Advantage Nats.
- Game 4: Tanner Roark vs Jake Arrieta: Arrieta’s 2nd half was awesome (he went 7-2 with a 1.29 ERA in the season’s last two months), but he also suffered a Hamstring issue that pushed his start back. He hasn’t pitched since 9/26; how rusty will he be? Roark got bombed in his last start (9/27), then struggled in a mop-up inning to keep him fresh (3 hits and a walk), and is a creature of habit in terms of preparation … so how will he look on October 10th after not having started for 2 weeks? I suspect this game could get to the bullpens early on both sides. Advantage Cubs though for the obvious reasons: they’re throwing a former Cy Young winner and we’re not.
- Game 5 if we get here: Strasburg against Hendricks again. We feel confident Strasburg will continue his reign of dominance … but can the Nats figure out how to be more patient against the soft-tossing Hendricks?
Lets not get ahead of ourselves here; we need to get the split in Chicago before we talk about Game 5. When we get there, we’ll talk again.
Bright Spots for the Nats so far: Strasburg, the bullpen, Adam Lind‘s game changing pinch hit in his first post season AB. Even Gonzalez‘s start wasn’t that bad.
Areas of Concern: The offense in general; the team is hitting just .136 and is lucky to have gotten the split. Turner is the biggest concern; Werth is 0-fer but is putting the ball in play, and Rendon’s paltry BA takes some of the context out of the harder hit balls he’s hitting; they’ll fall eventually.