Nationals Fall Just Short Again

Max Scherzer (Photo by Diamond Images)

WASHINGTON—The longest nine-inning playoff game in major league history was full of twists and turns, especially in a 66-minute seventh inning, and it concluded with Clayton Kershaw nailing down a save on one day’s rest with a strikeout of Wilmer Difo, who spent most of the year in the minor leagues.

Despite all the unlikely events in the deciding Game 5 of the NL Division Series between the Dodgers and Nationals, the ending was all too familiar to Washington and its fans. Los Angeles won, 4-3, with 20-year-old lefthander Julio Urias earning the victory in relief in his postseason debut. Closer Kenley Jansen then recored a career-high seven outs before the ace Kershaw retired Daniel Murphy and Difo to send the Dodgers into the NL Championship Series against the Cubs.

“You know, at the end of the day, if we don’t win that game, we’re going home, anyway, so what does it matter?” Kershaw said. “I just wanted to be available, and it ended up to the point where I could help out tonight.”

D.C. still has not won a postseason series since the 1924 Washington Senators won the World Series, and Thursday’s Game 5 loss happened in typically excruciating fashion.

Playing the postseason without righthander Stephen Strasburg and catcher Wilson Ramos, both out with injuries, the Nationals took a 2-1 lead in the series with a win in Los Angeles on Monday. They rallied to tie Game 4 at 5-5, but the Dodgers won on Chase Utley’s RBI hit in the eighth. Thursday night at home, Washington had another chance to advance to its first NLCS.

In 2012, the Nationals lost Game 5 at home to the Cardinals after leading 6-0 through three innings and 7-5 through eight. Two years later, Washington lost two games at home to San Francisco in a four-game series loss, with one coming after Jordan Zimmermann was pulled from the game one out from a shutout. That Game 2 went 18 innings, with Brandon Belt hitting the winning homer. The time it took to decide that home loss: 6 hours, 23 minutes for the longest game in postseason history.

Unlike in that defeat, which ended in front of numerous empty seats, Thursday’s crowd of 43,936 was at attention from start to finish, even with the city’s Metro trains closing during the seventh inning during preplanned SafeTrack construction work. For any fans who thought of leaving after the Dodgers scored four times in the top of the seventh, Chris Heisey’s two-run pinch homer in the bottom of the seventh brought them back in and then some.

With Max Scherzer on the mound, Washington was up 1-0 through six innings on an RBI single by Danny Espinosa in the second. A chance to increase the lead, though, failed when third base coach Bobby Henley waved Jayson Werth home on Ryan Zimmerman’s double to left field with two outs in the sixth. Werth was thrown out easily on shortstop Corey Seager’s relay of a throw from fellow rookie Andrew Toles.

One pitch later—in the top of the seventh—Joc Pederson homered to the opposite field in left to tie the game. Scherzer was pulled and Zimmerman removed in a double switch. Five relievers later—in the same inning—Los Angeles led 4-1 on a pinch-hit RBI single by Carlos Ruiz and a two-run triple by Justin Turner.

After the loss, Scherzer said it was the craziest game in which he has taken part. First-year Dodgers manager Dave Roberts agreed.

“Yeah, I think that when I look back at all the things that happened, I definitely echo that,” Roberts said. “It’s just one of those things that when you’re in the middle of a game, you’re trying to count outs and shorten the game and put guys in the best position to have success on the offensive side, the defensive side.”

The Nationals fell behind by three runs, but they weren’t finished. After narrowing the margin to 4-3, they stranded Stephen Drew at first after a leadoff walk in the eighth. Then in the ninth, Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth both drew one-out walks before Kershaw entered. The lefthander then retired Daniel Murphy, whom Kershaw later called “the best hitter on the planet,” on a popup to second base before striking out Difo, the last position player on Nationals manager Dusty Baker’s bench.

“It’s not an overnight process,” said Baker, who is still looking for his first World Series title as a manager. “But I mean, yeah, you do have to go through some pain. It’s not a very pleasant pain. I’ve gone through that pain a few times now.

“But you know, you have to persevere. That’s the story of life. You know, it’s how you deal with the down times and how you deal with pain. And if you just keep persevering, then something will happen, something good will happen. You can’t stop trying. You can’t stop trying to reach your goal.”