When the Nats were in another elimination game, it was Stephen Strasburg to the rescue as he went 8 1/3 innings of 2 run baseball for his 5th win (a MLB record) of the postseason and the biggest win of his career. He absolutely etched his name alongside Sandy Koufax, Mariano Rivera and Madison Bumgarner as the best postseason pitchers in MLB history as he pushed Justin Verlander to a career 0-5 in World Series games. The Nats won this one by a final score of 7-2 to even the series, and Anthony Rendon drove in 5 runs and was a triple shy of a cycle.
“Stras was doing Stras things up there,” Anthony Rendon said.
This game had plenty of umpiring controversy, and you could guess the Nats came up on the short end of Trea Turner called out of the baseline which is not reviewable. Manager Dave Martinez went ballistic on the umpires and he was ejected which is rare in a World Series as it has not happened is 23 years when Bobby Cox was ejected in 1996.
“I don’t necessarily want [Davey] to get thrown out, but I love it,” Turner said.
The Nats were behind 2-1 in the first inning, but then the Nats scored 6 unanswered runs. The game was close in that 7th inning at 3-2 when Turner was called out and that is when Rendon crushed a 2-run home run to almost put the game out of reach. He added two more runs on double in the 9th inning which missed being a home run by a few feet.
“I started shaking my glove so they didn’t know what I was throwing,” Strasburg said. “I thank Paul Menhart for giving me the tip.”
On most nights, this would only be about Stephen Strasburg, and he will share the player of the game award with Rendon. Of course, Adam Eaton tied the game then Juan Soto smashed an upper deck 413 footer for the game winning RBI.
What all this means is that the Washington Nationals have forced a Game 7. Get ready for this to be the most intense game in Nationals history. They expect Max Scherzer to go up against Zack Greinke.
