The detritus of Friday afternoon had not yet been swept away, and the Washington Nationals had already shifted focus to Saturday evening. Their own squandered chances and the peerless execution of the San Francisco Giants remained fresh. The bat crack from Bryce Harper’s third-deck missile still echoed. Jake Peavy’s guile had foiled Stephen Strasburg’s laborious postseason debut not an hour earlier.
The Nationals pushed aside the details of their 3-2, white-knuckled defeat in Game 1 of the best-of-five National League Division Series. They knew their season — a 96-win steamrolling that anointed them a World Series favorite — and maybe their collective reputation would be distilled into three or so hours of baseball.
Saturday afternoon, the Nationals will hand the ball and a 1-0 series deficit to Jordan Zimmermann for Game 2 against longtime nemesis Tim Hudson, asking their star right-hander to follow his season-ending no-hitter in a season-defining situation.
“We have to win that game tomorrow, definitely,” Harper said. “That’s a must-win. Being able to go 1-1 into San Fran is going to be huge. If we go 0-2 going into San Fran, I don’t even want to think about it. We’ve got to win that game tomorrow.”
Game 1 played out in a manner they expected, all gnashed teeth and chewed fingernails. “This series,” reliever Craig Stammen said, “is going to be tight.” And the Giants — winners of two of the past four World Series, 23-8 in their past 31 postseason games — excel in tight situations. Wednesday night, after the Giants won the wild-card game to advance to the NLDS, Hudson lauded the Nationals’ talent.
The Washington Nationals key players sound off on why they lost to the San Francisco Giants during Game 1 of the National Division League Series and how they are preparing for Game 2. (Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
The Nationals, however, went 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position Friday and stranded seven runners. Shortstop Ian Desmond went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts, one with the bases loaded and two outs, the other with two on in the eighth. With four games potentially remaining, the top-seeded Nationals still must prove to their opponents they can hang as tough as them in October.
“I just feel that we understand what’s at stake,” Giants reliever Sergio Romo said. “We understand it takes a little bit more than talent, so to speak. Talent gets you here, getting the job done during the season gets you here. It does take a little bit more to get you through this postseason.”
On both sides of the ball, the Giants stuck to a carefully crafted script. Peavy threw nothing over the middle and nothing straight, refusing to give in to the Nationals as they drove his pitch count to 104 over 52/ 3 innings. They focused on hitting the ball up the middle against Strasburg, who allowed two runs and struck out only two in five-plus innings, allowing eight hits, all of them singles from the contact-crazy, pesky Giants.
“Usually when you give up eight hits, they’re not all singles,” Strasburg said. “I really had to go out there and battle my way through some innings today, and that’s what I really wanted to do going into the start. ”
The 44,035 towel-waving fans at Nationals Park had grown whisper-quiet after the Giants took a 3-0 lead in the top of seventh. Harper led off against rookie Hunter Strickland, who had shut down a sixth-inning rally with a 100-mph fastball. He fired a 2-1, 97-mph fastball, down the middle and at the knees. Harper unleashed a viciously efficient swing. The ball screamed toward right field. Strickland covered his face with his glove, either because he didn’t want to curse on live television or because he could not bear to watch the ball’s sonic-boom flight.
Strickland “came in throwing fuzz,” Harper said. “I got a pitch I could handle, and I did what I do. Hitting that homer was something we needed.”
As Harper tossed his bat aside, the ball landed three rows deep in the third deck, beyond the facade marking Jackie Robinson’s retired No. 42. Harper tore around the bases, floated across home plate and leapt in the air. He flashed the thumb, index finger and pinkie of his left hand — the sign for “I love you” to his parents.
“The roof blew off this place,” reliever Tyler Clippard said. “It was a momentum shift. We felt it.”
Energy rippled through the stadium even after Wilson Ramos took a close 3-2 pitch for strike three. Asdrubal Cabrera walked to the plate next. Strickland threw him a 1-2 inside fastball at the letters. Cabrera turned on it and drilled it into the Nationals bullpen
The Nationals kept the pressure on in the eighth against Romo. Anthony Rendon and Adam LaRoche singled to put two on with one out for Desmond. After he took a fastball for strike one, Desmond fished for two “drop-down” sliders that broke away from him and out of the strike zone. Harper grounded to first base. The tying and go-ahead runs had been marooned.
“I didn’t come through in that last at-bat,” Harper said. “So that homer is nothing.”
“We had some opportunities,” Manager Matt Williams said. “We’ll take that every single day of the week — the opportunity with guys out there and the middle of our order up. Today, it didn’t happen.”
The most painful missed chance came in the sixth. Jayson Werth worked a two-out, seven-pitch walk that knocked Peavy from the game. LaRoche drew another walk off Javier Lopez to load the bases with two outs. Up to the plate walked Desmond, who in his career had hit .433 with a .388 on-base percentage and .583 slugging percentage in 67 plate appearances with the bases loaded. Giants Manager Bruce Bochy emerged from the first base dugout again and summoned Strickland, a lightning-armed, 26-year-old right-hander who had made his major league debut Sept. 1.
Desmond can a hit a fastball, but he couldn’t touch Strickland. The reliever threw Desmond pitches clocked at 99, 98, 99 and 100 mph. Desmond waved at the last, and the Nationals had left the bases loaded.
“One hundred is 100,” Desmond said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with velocity. I didn’t put my best foot forward. We have some games left, and hopefully I’m able to bounce back.”
The Giants’ lead remained 2-0, and they added a run in the seventh off Stammen that would prove crucial. Rookie Joe Panik smoked Stammen’s sinker to left-center field. Denard Span underestimated the carry of Panik’s blast, and as he reached the warning track he mistimed his leap at the wall. The ball deflected off his glove, and Panik raced for a triple. Span said later the play would haunt him.
“It’s not a routine play,” Span said. “But I don’t consider myself a routine type of player.”
Buster Posey followed with a rip that Stammen deflected but could not corral. Two hits off gloves, and the Giants had pushed ahead, 3-0.
The Nationals won 14 times this season when trailing after six innings, and they all believed they could again. “Just because we’ve been there and we’ve done it and we’ve seen it happen so many times,” LaRoche said. “I think everybody was just waiting for it to happen.”
The rally came and fell short. And so they will arrive at Nationals Park on Saturday with renewed urgency. “We got to treat Game 2 as if it is an elimination game,” Span said.
The Nationals will also be greeted with a question, that same one that has hovered over them for two years.
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