The wait is over.
The drought is done.
The ghosts are vanquished.
After 86 Octobers watching other teams play for titles…
After dozens of last-place finishes and an expansion team that had only one winning mark…
After watching greedy owners move away two franchises…
After 33 seasons in baseball wasteland without a team…
After seven seasons of sub-.500 ball…
After four postseason failures…
The Washington Nationals are going to the World Series!
The Nation’s Capital will host the Fall Classic for the first time since 1933. Did you think it would be easy?
Even though they led the series and the game, Nats fans were made to sweat out the last 12 outs of tonight’s 7-4 win over the St. Louis Cardinals to sweep the National League Division Series and clinch a pennant for Washington for the first time in as long as almost anyone can remember.
Champagne was popped. Tears were shed. And years of stigma as a baseball backwater or a town that couldn’t hold a team were cast away — forever.
Best of all, it happened against the St. Louis Cardinals, the team that cast a spell the Nats that started their postseason struggles in 2012. Remember? Ahead 6-0 early, the Nats couldn’t hold the lead, and after twice having the Cards down to their last strike, fell in agonizing fashion in the first of four National League Division Series disappointments.
Psst — I’ve got a secret for you: Drew Storen was squeezed. It was a character building exercise, so that we could appreciate success all the more once it came.
The famed Stephen Strasburg shutdown? Another exercise in patience and faith. The young pitcher who showed flashes of brilliance had yet to mature into the tireless ace we know today. That healing time in 2012 did not cost this team a shot at greatness then; instead, it earned greatness today.
Teamed with Max Scherzer and Anibal Sanchez, cagey veterans in their own right, and Patrick Corbin, a young lefty star on the rise, they formed perhaps the most formidable rotation in baseball — certainly in the National League.
Deployed properly, they got the best of the 106-win Dodgers. In sequence, they were no match for the NL Central champion Cardinals, yielding zero earned runs until Game 4.
After St. Louis beat the Atlanta Braves in the Division Series, manager Mike Shildt unleashed a profanity-laced tirade about what the Cards were going to do to whomever they would face in the NLCS. On his way out of Nats Park tonight, he might have cried “Uncle!” or “Daddy!”
And that worst-in-baseball bullpen? It was good enough. Just good enough — but good enough. Blame general manager Mike Rizzo all you want for its initial construction, but give him all the credit for bringing in Fernando Rodney, who pitched a key inning in Game Three, and Daniel Hudson, who gutted out the final out of the eighth inning and breezed through the ninth of the clincher.
Credit Rizzo also for sticking with the “old men,” who were injured, cast off, and who many said should retire. Instead, Ryan Zimmerman played flawless defense at first base and contributed ably at the plate. How many more games will supposedly be the 35-year-old Zimmerman’s “last” with the Nats? At least four more, baby!
And 36-year-old Howie Kendrick, who started as a utility man and spent nearly a year rehabbing from a torn Achilles tendon, showed us all. He hit the home run that got the Nats over the Division Series hump against the Dodgers and was so prolific at the plate against the Cardinals, he wound up as NLCS Most Valuable Player.
Overseeing it all, was Manager Dave Martinez. Pundits and many fans wanted him fired when the team was 19-31. He was hospitalized with a heart condition as the team went through the final stretch of the regular season. Tonight, after he kissed the league championship trophy, he told revelers who stuck around to celebrate with the players, “This team healed my heart!”
This team healed more than Davey Martinez’ heart. It healed a city whose baseball traditions were unappreciated, misunderstood, overlooked, all but forgotten.
No more.
Now we have a postseason pedigree.
Now we are the survivors.
Now we have a championship.
Now — for the first time since 1933 – we are going to the World Series.
