The Washington Nationals have won the 2019 World Series. This is one of the most miraculous World Series winning seasons in the history of Major League Baseball.
On May 23rd The Nationals season already looked like a flop, their record for the season was 19-31, and no team since the 1914 Boston Brave have come out of a deficit so big and so late in the season to win the World Series .
The Nats were 10 games behind the National League East leading Philadelphia Phillies at this point and were 8.5 games out of the closest NL wildcard spot. They had such a little chance of winning the World Series that on June 1st DraftKings had their odds as +5000 to win the World Series.
The Nats fought through all the doubt and ended up winning 65% of their games for the rest of the season to finish the season off with 9 wins. Enough to guarantee them a home wildcard game against the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Nats had to shake off some serious playoff demons in the game as they have never once advanced in the playoffs before. The trend looked like it would continue going into the bottom of the 8th inning with the Nats down 3-1 with dominant closer Josh Hader coming out of the bullpen for the Brewers with a potential six out save in mind.
The Nats showed they were a team that was going to break curses when Juan Soto came up clutch with the bases loaded and had a bases clearing double giving the Nationals a 4-3 lead heading into the 9th inning. They would hold this lead and advance to the National League Division Series.
In the NLDS the Nats would be matched up against the favorites to come out of the National League in the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Nationals have not once in their history gotten past the NLDS making this series even more trick for them. The series would go the distance and would come down to a winner take all game five in Dodgers Stadium.
They struggled early against the Dodgers and would end up losing 3-1 again going into the 8th inning with Anthony Rendon up to bat. This time they were going up against Dodgers ace pitcher and multiple time Cy Young Winner Clayton Kershaw. Anthony Rendon showed he didn’t care who was pitching and proceed to hit a massive home run to left field. Next up was Juan Soto who Hit the first pitch he saw over the center field wall. The Nats for the second time in the 2019 postseason flipped over a near hopeless situation. They would end up winning the game 7-3 in extra inning and would advance to play the St.Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series.
The Nats didn’t play around with the Cardinals and dominated them for the entirety of the Series. They swept the Cardinal in the NLCS and outscored them in the series by a combined score of 20-6. They were on to the World Series.
In the Fall Classic the would be matched up against the World Series favorite Houson Astros who won 107 games during the regular season.
People still doubted that the Nationals were for real as the entered the series as a +170 betting underdog according to Caesars Sportsbook.
The Nats would prove that they were for real early winning the first two games of the series with both games being on the road in Houston. It looked like the Nats would run away with the series with the next three games being played in Washington D.C. but they would face another test of adversity losing all three of their home games. The series would come down to the Nats ability to win on the road in Houston now.
Game six started off great for the Nationals, they scored a run in the top of the first inning to take a crucial early lead. However this excitement would not last long for the Nationals as Alex Bregman would hit a home run to take a 2-1 lead into the second inning. It looked like Stephen Strausburg, the Nationals Pitcher, would have a terrible outing but he would recollect himself. From this point on Stephen Strausburg was nearly perfect and didn’t allow a single run in the next seven innings he pitched. The Nats offense would feed off this and score six more runs on route to a game six victory. We would get a game esven to decide the winner of the World Series.
Game Seven would pit two former Cy Young Winners against each other. The Astros starting Zack Grienke and the Nats would go with Max Scherzer. Scherzer would be solid for six innings only giving up two runs but he couldn’t match with Grienke, who didn’t allow a single run through six.
In the top of the seventh inning Greinke started showing cracks giving up a home run to Anthony Rnedon and a walk. The lead to Astros manager, A.J. Hinch, taking him out and putting in star reliever Will Harris. Howie Kendrick would hit a home run in this key at bat and give the Nats an important 3-2 lead. The Nationals would extend their lead in the next couple of innings and would start the ninth inning with a 6-2 lead. Closer Daniel Hudson came in to finish the game and he would retire the side. The Nationals had finally won their first championship.
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