Second baseman Howie Kendrick won MVP of the 2019 National League Championship Series with consistent hitting through the Nationals' four-game sweep of the Cardinals, completed Tuesday with a 7-4 win. The victory secured for the Nats a berth in their first-ever World Series.
He also hit a dramatic grand slam in Game 5 of the National League Division Series to help eliminate his former team, the Dodgers.
Kendrick went 5-for-15 (.333) in the four-game sweep of the Cards, collecting four doubles,...
The Nationals advanced to the World Series on Tuesday night with a 7-4 victory and a sweep of the National League Championship Series over the Cardinals. They punched their ticket to the Fall Classic with a big first inning, solid pitching from Patrick Corbin and four impressive shutout innings from their bullpen.
Tanner Rainey relieved Corbin in the sixth and delivered a clean inning with a strikeout.
Sean Doolittle came in for the seventh and even notched two more outs in the eighth.
And...
For a team that had to scratch and claw its way back from a 19-31 start to the season, that had to excel in late September to clinch a spot in the National League wild card game, that had to come from behind to win that do-or-die game against the Brewers and that had to come from behind again to win a do-or-die game against the Dodgers to capture its first ever postseason series, this felt too easy.
Up seven runs in the first inning in search of a four-game sweep of the NL Championship Series?...
During those dark days of late May, when the Nationals owned the second-worst record in the National League and calls for change were growing from outside the organization, Mark Lerner did exactly what the clubhouse did. He stuck with his guys, especially manager Davey Martinez.
"It never crossed my mind to dismiss Davey, no matter all the pressure that was put on us," Lerner, the Nationals' managing principal owner, said this evening before Game 4 of the National League Championship Series....
Having starters Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin pitch postseason bullpen innings isn't new to Washington baseball. In fact, the strategy is decades old.
In 1924, the only season Washington has won the World Series, the Senators' future Hall of Famer, starter Walter "Big Train'' Johnson, pitched four shutout innings in a 4-3 Game 7 victory against the New York Giants at Griffith Stadium, currently the site of Howard University Hospital.
The Senators, then in the American...
Nationals left-hander Patrick Corbin defeated the Cardinals on Sept. 17 at Busch Stadium by throwing six strong innings and allowing only two unearned runs. He struck out 11 and walked four in a 6-2 Nationals victory. The former DIamondback gets his second start of the postseason tonight in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series.
"Yeah, we just played them a month or so ago," Corbin said. "I'll just try to go over film and go over what I did do well and what I didn't do well. At...
The Cardinals had to get off to a good start in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. The Nationals, leading three games to none in the best-of-seven series, were due for a letdown.
Right?
Nope.
Left-hander Patrick Corbin struck out the side using all fastballs in the top of the first to get the game rolling.
The Nationals then went after Cards starter Dakota Hudson in the bottom of the first, scoring seven runs on six hits. Trea Turner singled and Adam Eaton doubled to begin the...
The Cardinals finished their regular season on a 47-27 run, won the National League Central and returned to the postseason for the first time since 2015. They beat Atlanta in the NL Division Series and scored 10 runs in the first inning of a Game 5 13-1 smashing of the Braves.
But when they got to the NL Championship Series against the Nationals, the Cardinals fell apart.
The Nationals beat them 7-4 in Game 4, giving Washington a sweep and the city its first pennant since 1933, when the...
The Nationals have played 2,456 games during their 15 years of existence. Many of those games carried little to no meaning. A decent number of them were significant but not historic. Twenty-eight of them have come in the postseason. None have featured the stakes that are on the table tonight.
For the first time in their history, the Nats are playing for a pennant. One more win over the Cardinals and they'll win the National League Championship Series and reach the World Series. And if they do...
Everybody keeps talking about the Nationals' No. 3 and No. 4 hitters as the pair that is the most difficult to stop in the lineup.
It's true. Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto have come up with game-changing hits in this postseason.
But the Nats' No. 5 and No. 6 hitters are not too shabby, either.
Howie Kendrick and Ryan Zimmerman combined to go 5-for-8 (.625) with four doubles, two runs and five RBIs in the Nats' 8-1 win over the Cardinals in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series...
Yes, Patrick Corbin signed with the Nationals last winter because they offered him more years and more dollars than any of the other contenders for the free agent's services. But he also came to Washington because of what he knew he could be a part of: A rotation that would rival any other in baseball, and a team that expected to play in October.
All of that stood out to Corbin, who after coming through the Angels' farm system and then pitching six years in the majors for a Diamondbacks team...
Stephen Strasburg is in a zone at just the right time for the Nationals.
He again demonstrated his elite ability with seven strong innings Monday night, striking out 12 and allowing just one unearned run in an 8-1 victory over the Cardinals in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.
The Nats lead the series three games to none and can clinch the first trip to the World Series in franchise history on Tuesday night in Game 4.
What zone is Strasburg in? Try 3-0 with a 1.64 ERA in four...
Surely there were some among the throng of 43,675 on South Capitol Street tonight who saw the home team holding a 6-0 lead over the visiting Cardinals in a postseason game and felt a sudden shiver go down their spines.
Those folks must still be shell-shocked by the events of Oct. 12, 2012, a day that lives in infamy around these parts because of what happened after the home team took a 6-0 lead on the Cardinals in Game 5 of the National League Division Series. That night has haunted this...
Davey Martinez had been saying for days Victor Robles would return to the Nationals lineup once his hamstring was healed enough to ease any concern about more serious injury. Tonight, the Nats manager and medical staff decided it was safe for the rookie center fielder to take the field again.
Robles, who hasn't played since straining his right hamstring during Game 2 of the National League Division Series on Oct. 4, will start tonight in center field and bat eighth for Game 3 of the NL...
The Cardinals came to D.C. taking aim at becoming the second National League team to recover from a 0-2 deficit in a best-of-seven series and make the World Series.
Instead, they dug themselves an even deeper hole.
The Nationals, a win away from bringing the World Series to Washington for the first time since 1933, beat the Cardinals 8-1 in Game 3 on Monday night to take a three games to none lead in the NL Championship Series at wild and crazy Nationals Park.
The 2004 Red Sox are the only team...
Right-hander Stephen Strasburg started Game 3 of the National League Championship Series with a pair of strikeouts in the first inning, including a called third strike on a curveball to Paul Goldschmidt to end the frame.
Marcell Ozuna led off the second with a double down the left field line. Fielding a comebacker by José MartÃnez, Strasburg wheeled and was able to catch Ozuna off second base. Strasburg then got a pair of popups to get out of the threat.
Anthony Rendon drew a two-out walk...
Right-hander Stephen Strasburg makes his first start at home in the postseason for tonight's Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.
Strasburg's last start was in the National League Division Series Game 5, in which he allowed three runs early but then settled in to post six innings in the 7-3, 10-inning win over the Dodgers.
"Yeah, he's been awesome," said Nationals manager Davey Martinez. "The biggest thing for him is what we always talk about, is to control the...
They spent the better part of five months playing with their backs against the wall. There was the infamous 19-31 start. Then a slow climb back into the race. Then a missed opportunity to catch the Braves in the National League East. Then a down-to-the-wire surge to ensure home-field advantage for the wild card game.
Then that winner-take-all game against the Brewers, in which they trailed with four outs to go. Then a 1-0 and 2-1 deficit in the best-of-five National League Division Series...
You couldn't conjure up a better forecast for the first National League Championship Series game played in the District of Columbia. There isn't a cloud in the sky. The temperature at gametime will be in the upper 60s, dropping into the low 60s later in the evening. This is what October is supposed to look and feel like.
Nationals Park should be rocking tonight, starting with the pregame festivities that will include the ceremonial first pitch thrown out by Parker Staples, a pediatric cancer...
ST. LOUIS - The weak link of the Nationals roster, it is well known, is a bullpen that ranked among the majors' worst all season and simply cannot be trusted to close out games.
Except that's not entirely true.
The weak link of the Nationals roster is the rank-and-file portion of the bullpen, the guys who pitch the sixth and seventh innings, or the guys who have to fill in later when the main arms are unavailable.
In the postseason, that portion of the bullpen has barely seen action....



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