Washington Nationals top Astros to win first World Series title
Baseball team owned by the Lerners, a prominent Jewish DC -area family, brings city its first championship since the Senators won in 1924 with Game 7 win
HOUSTON (AP) — Almost out of contention in May, champs in October.
Howie Kendrick, Anthony Rendon and the Washington Nationals completed their amazing comeback journey — fittingly with one final, late rally on the road.
In Game 7 of the World Series, no less.
Kendrick and Rendon homered in the seventh inning as the Nationals overcame a two-run deficit, rocking the Houston Astros 6-2 Wednesday night to claim the first title in franchise history.
With all eyes on Max Scherzer and his remarkable recovery after a painkilling injection, these Nationals truly embraced their shot in the first Series when the road team won every game.
I don’t care who’s actually recording it — the final out of the World Series always gets me. Congrats to the Nats. pic.twitter.com/rcQJddb0P3
— Jared Carrabis (@Jared_Carrabis) October 31, 2019
Even more against the odds: Juan Soto and Washington rallied from behind to win five elimination games this postseason, an unprecedented feat.
Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and the Nats brought the first World Series championship to the nation’s capital since ol’ Walter Johnson delivered the crown for the Senators in 1924.
This franchise started out as the Montreal Expos in 1969 when the major leagues expanded beyond the border, putting a team with tricolor caps at jaunty Jarry Park. They moved to D.C. in 2005 after being bought by the Lerner family, one of the most prominent Jewish families in the DC area, ending Washington’s three-decade-plus wait for big league baseball after the Senators left town to become the Texas Rangers.
Real estate tycoon and philanthropist Ted Lerner then transferred principal ownership to his son Mark in 2018 when he retired.
Israel’s ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer congratulated the family for the win and hailed them as “great supporters of the Jewish community and the Jewish state.”
Congrats to the #Nats, to all their fans and to the wonderful Lerner family, who are great supporters of the Jewish community and the Jewish state.
— Ron Dermer – רון דרמר (@AmbDermer) October 31, 2019
“What a story,” said Ryan Zimmerman, the Nationals’ first draft pick back in 2005.
“I hope D.C.’s ready for us to come home!”
But the incredible path these wild-card Nationals with the curly W logo took, well, no one could have imagined.
Having lost star slugger Bryce Harper to free agency and beset by bullpen woes, Washington plummeted to 19-31 in late May. It got so bad there was talk around town the Nationals might fire manager Dave Martinez and trade away Scherzer.
Instead, they stuck with the mantra that sprung up on T-shirts — Stay In The Fight.
“That was out motto,” Scherzer said.
And months later they finished it, indeed.
“Guess what? We stayed in the fight. We won the fight!” Martinez shouted during the trophy celebration on the field.
“We were down and out. We were 19-31. We didn’t quit then, we weren’t going to quit now,” he said.
For the 43,326 revved-up fans at Minute Maid Park, it was a combination of shock and disappointment. So close to seeing the Astros win their second crown in three years, they watched their chance suddenly vanish as Houston fell apart.
Washington kept pulling away after taking the lead, with Adam Eaton’s two-run single in the ninth accounting for the final margin.
Zack Greinke was in complete control until Rendon — a Houston prep and college star — hit a home run that cut Houston’s lead to 2-1.
When Soto followed with a one-out walk, manager AJ Hinch decided to make a move. He’d had ace starter Gerrit Cole warming up in the bullpen earlier, but this call was for Will Harris.
Kendrick connected on the second pitch, slicing a drive that hit the screen attached to the right field foul pole. Just like that, everything had changed for the team in orange that led the majors in wins, and the ballpark fell silent.
For Kendrick, another timely blow. At 36, playing on the oldest team in the majors, the journeyman earned the MVP award for the NL Championship Series against St. Louis after hitting the winning grand slam in the 10th inning of the deciding Game 5 of the Division Series at Dodger Stadium.
Then again, this was nothing new for the Nationals.
Washington rallied in the eighth to beat Milwaukee in the wild-card game and took the last two to beat Los Angeles in the NLDS, setting up a sweep of the Cardinals in the NLCS.
Far away, a big crowd poured into Nationals Park for a watch party. That was the stadium where Houston hammered the Nats for three games last weekend, but their luck changed in Texas.
This World Series had lacked a lot of drama, aside from a volatile call of interference in Washington’s Game 6 win that stoked heated debate across the sports world. Who knew rule 5.09(a)(11) could stir such passion?
With Greinke and Scherzer grunting on every pitch, Game 7 was a classic duel from the start.
Yuli Gurriel put the Astros ahead with a home run in the second and Carlos Correa added an RBI single off Scherzer that made it 2-0 in the fifth.
Scherzer was done after the fifth, but he had done his job to keep it close. Only a few days earlier, the three-time Cy Young Award winner had been unable to lift his right arm because of nerve irritation near his neck.
Daniel Hudson closed it out for the Nationals, who made Houston pay for stranding so many runners on base all game. Hudson struck out Michael Brantley for the last out, then threw his glove to start the celebration.
For the Astros, who brought baseball into the Space Age with their far-out Astrodome and AstroTurf, and helped zoom the game into the galaxy of the Analytics Era, it was a startling end.
Houston shares a spring training complex in Florida with the Nationals and reported to camp in February full of high hopes.
The Astros breezed to the AL West title, edged Tampa Bay in a five-game ALDS and topped the Yankees in the ALCS. They played through front-office fiasco, which led to the firing of an executive for a boorish rant at female reporters during a clubhouse celebration.
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