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WASHINGTON – Washington is wild.
The Nationals took a win with a 6-5 win over their old friend Bryce Harper and rival Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday night. Technically, the place was locked only three minutes after the last exit. It was at this point that the Chicago Cubs lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, eliminating them from the contention of wild-cards and sending Washington into the playoffs.
The final of the Cubs-Pirates Contest was broadcast live on the giant Nationals Park video board. As soon as Chicago slugger Kyle Schwarber met up with Pittsburgh's Adam Frazier to end it, the Nationals – who had rallied calmly along the first-goal line – began their celebration with seriousness, bouncing back and forth. the name "Hey Look Ma, I Made It" sounded throughout the stadium. It was a moment that exactly four months ago seemed at best improbable.
"I had imagined it during the spring training," said coach Davey Martinez. His team was supposed to be a World Series contender but had a 19-31 record for its first 50 matches and recorded the National League's third worst performance on May 24th.
Despite the slow start, the sophomore skipper from Washington remained optimistic.
"I said that this team was going to bounce back and forth," Martinez said. "I thought we had bottomed out, but this team – we get everyone back, we get healthy again, it's going to be okay, so let's keep fighting, and we're there."
Although Martinez is his first trip to the playoffs, it's the fifth time in eight years for nationals. Each of the four previous times, they have been division winners. No one in the Washington clubhouse seemed to care about the team's blank card status.
"Everyone in this club has imagined this thing exactly here," said Trea Turner, whose crowbar was decisive on Tuesday night and sparked a powerful call from the astonishingly thin crowd of 22,214 people. "We talked about it between the ages of 19 and 31, we explained how we would laugh at everyone outside of this club for everything they said about us, and we are here now."
"We still have a way to go to win everything," said Max Scherzer, who won Tuesday night and is set to begin the wild card match next Tuesday. "We are going to be tested like we have never been in the regular season, but I love what this team has together.I like our chemistry.I like what we have. That's what it takes to win the playoffs. "
Winning the playoffs is unfamiliar to the Nationals, who have never passed the first round in four tries under the aegis of General Manager Mike Rizzo.
"Every season is unique and special," said Rizzo, who joined the national championships in 2007 and who took office as general manager two years later. "When you get to put plastic and pour beer on top of each other, it's a special season, we do not take that for granted, these are things that many teams want to do. . "
The Phillies are one of those teams from the outside. They had big plans when they signed a $ 330 million, 13-year contract with former Harper star, but were eliminated in the first game of the double game Tuesday, Tuesday. -1 loss. Their defeat in the nightcap, despite Harper's very tight homerun, put the former MVP's former club into celebratory mode.
An impromptu conga line is formed, propelling players around the clubhouse to the punchy beat of Latin music. M-V-P's vocals filled the Nats' locker room as his teammates stood around third base Anthony Rendon and the beer cover. Gerardo Parra led an exciting revival of "Baby Shark", the infant song that the reserve group adopted earlier in the season to become its own song and has since become a true anthem in the capital. national.
"It's so great," said Sean Doolittle. "After all we've gone through, we gather after all during the season and having to crawl out of the hole that we ourselves had found in May, this makes things sweeter .It's really special. "
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