The Nationals won 4-1 in this game against the Giants with a 7 inning gem from Max Scherzer, but history was made with a triple play with bases loaded in the 8th inning as Dusty Baker did a triple-switch bringing in Sammy Solis to pitch, Ryan Zimmerman for 1st base and Danny Espinosa for shortstop, and on Solis’ 2nd pitch, Brandon Crawford hit a low liner to Zimmerman who caught it near his shoe tops, stepped on 1st and threw to 3rd base to complete the triple play. “What a triple-double switch by Dusty,” Ryan Zimmerman said about Dusty bringing him in as well as Espinosa and Solis into the game at the same time.
We have always referred to Ryan Mattheus‘ appearance in the Nats first ever playoff game in 2012 as the greatest relief appearance in Nationals history where he came in relief with bases loaded and no outs and threw 2 pitches for 3 outs. Mattheus induced a 6-3 groundout then got the doubleplay ball. Solis had the most efficient relief appearance in Nats history with 3 outs on 1 ball in play.
Scherzer dropped his ERA to 2.85 in this game while improving to 11-6 for his W/L record.
The offense was powered by speed, and this time it was Wilson Ramos who scored the Nats first run from second base on a Jayson Werth single to tie the game at 1-1. The Nats tacked on 3 more runs to make that final score of 4-1.
The game recap video can be seen here.
This is a compilation video of the triple play from the Nationals and Giants TV and radio feeds. The Denard Span clips are “must see” and only needed “Where is he going, what was he doing” in a Charlie Slowes’ type of rendition of Nook Logan‘s infamous TOOTBLAN.
Here is a great Podcast of Trea Turner‘s ESPN 980 interview:
