The 2019 World Series

The amazing Washington Nationals defied all the odds and beat the powerful Houston Astros in an exciting seven-game World Series. This continued a great trend since the turn of the century of teams breaking barren stretches. Just think of all the great stories since 2000: the Diamondbacks winning their first Series in 2001, the Angels winning their first in 2002, the Red Sox breaking an 86-year curse in 2004, the White Sox breaking an 88-year drought in 2005, the Cubs finally winning in 2016, the Astros doing the same the next year, and now it's the Nationals' turn. This is the first World Series championship for the city of Washington since the Senators won in 1924, and the first-ever for the franchise which started as the Montreal Expos.

Noteworthy about this Series is that the away team won every game!  I have no explanation or words of wisdom about this, it is just one of those oddities that make baseball such a fascinating game.  No previous Series had ever seen the away team winning even six games.

In this postseason the Nats won an amazing five elimination games, starting with the wild card game against the Brewers. And every time they came from behind to do it! They seemed to possess a toughness that allowed them to overcome all obstacles. Their first obstacle this season was overcoming a 19-31 start, the worst 50-game start for a World Series winner ever, and only the second time a team ever came from 12 games below .500 to win a series, the other being the 1914 (miracle) Braves.

A major story line in this Series is the battle between an old school organization (the Nationals) and an analytics-driven organization (the Astros). The Nats are known for putting personal character front and center in their player decisions. Ryan Zimmerman commended the front office for asking the opinion of current players before acquiring another player. The GM would ask him, "What do you hear about this guy?" The Nats are known for having a large contingent of scouts, and for relying heavily on the opinions of those scouts. In fact, many scouts who have been let go by other organizations have been hired by the Nats. The Astros, by contrast, have been in the forefront of the new style of relying on analytics. In this particular battle, old school defeated new school.

Related to this last point is the fact that the Nats are the oldest team in MLB. This is counter to the trend these days of teams going for youth over veterans, who usually cost more and get hurt more often.

Another noteworthy item going into the series was the long layoff for the Nats.  Writers made much of the fact that teams with a layoff of six or more days have historically not done well in the World Series in recent years. The Tigers fizzled in the World Series in both 2006 and 2012, after sweeping the ALCS.  And of course there is the case of the 2007 Rockies, who had won 21 of 22 games going into the World Series, but despite that were swept in decisive fashion by the Red Sox.

Despite a short layoff, the Astros had their vaunted pitching rotation set up, thanks to dispatching the Yankees in the LCS without having to go to a game seven. Their game one starter was their ace, Gerrit Cole, who had not lost since May 22nd!  So what happened?  Of course, the Nats upset the Astros with a 5-4 win.  It looked bleak when the Astros scored two in the first, giving them a 2-0 lead with their ace on the hill.  But, amazingly, the Nats clawed back for 5 unanswered runs to take a 5-2 lead into the 6th.

The first of the 5 runs was scored on a 2nd-inning homer by Ryan Zimmerman, which was fitting as he was the first-ever draft pick for the Nationals in 2005, after they moved from Montreal, and has been with the team ever since.  The Nats 2nd run came in the 4th, when 20-year-old Juan Soto homered, becoming only the 4th player in MLB history under 21 years of age to hit a homer in a World Series game.  Soto hit a double off the wall later and was the star of the game with 3 hits.

Soto emerged as a rising star in this postseason.  He was the Nats hitter who delivered the go-ahead hit in the wild card game, at a time when the Nats were four outs from elimination.  And he was also the hitter who hit the game-tying homer off Clayton Kershaw in game five of the Division Series.

Nats ace Max Scherzer didn't have his best stuff, but struggled gamely to get through 5 innings, and the much-maligned Nats bullpen managed to nail down the win, despite allowing 2 runs.  The controversy in the game occurred in the 8th inning when the Astros George Springer didn't run hard to first base, thinking his ball was out.  He ended up getting a double, but he could have had a triple had he run hard.  His rather lame excuse was that he was afraid of passing the runner on second, who was tagging up in case the ball was caught.  Springer also opined that he would have been out had he tried for third.  However, consensus opinion is that Springer surely could have gotten to third had he run hard.  And he then would have had a chance to score and tie the game when the next batter hit a fly ball to the outfield.  Replays show that he was watching the ball all the way, and never even looked to see where the runner was.  His manager said he talked to him about it after the game, and said that Springer "got caught up in the moment".  Shame on Springer.

Game two saw an epic matchup between Steven Strasburg and Justin Verlander, both superstars who would be #1 starters on almost any other club, but relegated to #2 on their current clubs.  Both pitchers allowed two runs in the first inning, then settled down and it was still 2-2 going into the 7th.  Nats catcher Kurt Suzuki led off the 7th with a homer, and I went to bed.  The next morning I was shocked to learn that the Nats had gone on to score nine more runs in the last three innings, to win 12-3!

Game three saw the Nat's record-tying eight-game winning streak in a single postseason come to an end, as the Astros won rather uneventfully, 4-1.  It was the first World Series game in the city of Washington in 86 years.

Astros starter Zach Greinke pitched in and out of trouble for four and 2/3 innings, but allowed only one run, and then the Astros bullpen took over an held the Nats scoreless the rest of the way.  Altuve shined with two doubles, and scored twice on clutch hits by Michael Brantley.  The Nats' Juan Soto, on his 21st birthday, went 0 for 4 with 3 strikeouts, and made a fielding error in left.

Game four saw the Astros score two runs in the first, and go on to an easy 8-1 win, evening the series at 2-2.

Game five saw another Astro win, 7-1, as Max Scherzer had some physical problems and couldn't go, while the Astros ace Gerrit Cole was his usual dominant self.  A story line in the game was the inconsistency of the home plate umpire, who called a ball on strike three to Correa, who promptly hit a 2-run homer.  And then later, he called a strike on ball 4 to a Nats hitter, squelching a possible rally. Calls for an automated strike zone were heard.  I think this would help the hitters, who would not, with 2 strikes on them, have to swing at a ball just out of the zone, for fear the ump would call strike three.  Away team has now won all five of the games so far.

Game six had many compelling story lines.  Strasburg was dominant, running his record to 5-0 for this postseason, the first pitcher to ever go 5-0 in a single postseason.  He gave up two runs in the first, but then corrected a tell which had him tipping his pitches (unlike the bum Yu Darvish two years ago), and pitched into the ninth.  Strasburg worked out of a 2nd and 3rd base jam in the 5th by striking out Altuve on three super-nasty pitches, all off-speed.

Justin Verlander's World series frustrations continued as he is now 0-6 in the Fall Classic.  He left after five innings, trailing 3-2.

A major story line was the way Astro's 3b Bergman carried his bat all the way to first following his first inning home run.  This was universally condemned, and he apologized after the game.  The announcer said "he's going to get one of his teammates hurt".  Then in the fifth, the Nats' Soto hit a homer and did the same thing.

But the major drama occurred in the 7th, when Nats SS Trea Turner hit a little dribbler toward 3rd (the kind of hit that announcers wrongly call a "swinging bunt").  The throw was bad and took the first baseman over to the home plate side of first, and Turner ran into the glove.  The home plate ump called him out, and the Nats erupted in fury, with manager Martinez getting thrown out between innings when he continued to protest, and had to be restrained by his bench coach.

Turner looked to me to be running right on the base line, and so shouldn't have been called out.  There was an almost 5-minute delay while the umps called New York.  But the out call stood.  Commentators opined that technically the rule was correctly applied, but it is usually not called, as it wasn't with Bellinger in a recent World Series.  The rule itself is the problem, as it needs to be rewritten or at least clarified.  What is so troubling is that without a bad throw, there would have been no problem.  The Astros came out better with the bad throw than if they had thrown Turner out, as the runner who was on first had to return to first, when otherwise he would have been on at least second.  One suggested rules change is to make the play reviewable, as now it is a judgment call which is not reviewable.  (The headset delay was due to calling New York not to review the play, but to determine whether the Nats' attempt to protest the game was legitimate.  Martinez had asked for a rules clarification, which Joe Torre encourages in his talk with the managers before every World Series, and this is what the call was about.)

This bad call had the potential to be a major blight on the game and the Series, but fortunately, Anthony Rendon bailed out the umps by hitting a two-run homer later in the inning, so it didn't cost the Nats the game.  They won 7-2, with Rendon getting five RBI's.

Game seven saw yet another comeback by the resilient Nationals.  They were down 2-0 after six innings, unable to do anything against Zach Greinke. Max Scherzer pitched five gritty innings, starting the game after not being able to raise his arm above his head three days earlier, due to neck spasms. A cortisone shot got him in condition to go in game seven, and he gave it his all, warrior that he is. The game four starter, Patrick Corbin, then pitched the next three innings, and the Nats' closer took care of the ninth.The Nats finally broke through for three runs in the seventh, and then added one in the eighth and two more in the ninth, for a final of 6-2, the final score not indicative of how close and tense the game actually was.

The victory of the Nats followed a tumultuous offseason in which the Nats were not able to retain celebrated outfielder Bryce Harper, who signed a huge contract with the Phillies. Most commentators, this writer included, predicted that the Phillies would be improved and probably win the division, and that the Nats would once again disappoint. But they prevailed, in magnificent fashion!

The MVP went to Stephen Strasburg, the starter in games two and six. His success certainly vindicated the Nats' caution in limiting his innings in 2012 when he was coming back from Tommy John surgery. The Nats, who had the best record in baseball that year but failed to get past the Division Series with Strasburg shut down, were heavily criticized at the time.  But their long-range concern for Strasburg's health, sacrificing short-term gain, has finally paid off. Kudos to the Nats, World Series champions!

11/14/19 update.  A recent article discussed how the Nats are bucking the trend toward beefed-up bullpens and de-emphasized starting pitching. The analytics say that starting pitches do demonstrably worse the third time through a batting order; consequently, the average start this past year was only 5.2 innings, the lowest ever. The average had hovered around 6 between 1993 and 2015, but has been steadily dropping since that 2015 season.

The Nats, fighting this trend, dedicated 39% of their payroll to just three starting pitchers: Scherzer, Strasburg and Corbin. The Astros were similar in dedicating much of its payroll to its top three in Cole, Verlander and Greinke. The question now is, will other clubs follow suit in the coming years?