FOR ALL THE MARBLES – Recap of Game 7 – 2019 World Series

Author by professormaddog31Posted in Baseball

Prof: Congrats are in order to SomeGuy and his Washington Nationals, who took the bull by the horns and willed themselves to victory. I mean, did the Nats win or did the Astros lose? Little bit of both, honestly. Let’s look how we got there.

 

Max Scherzer vs Zack Greinke was a matchup of my dreams and it did not disappoint. Scherzer, coming back from literally not being able to move most of his upper body mere days ago, came out Peak Mad Max. Greinke, on the other hand, was the chillest I have ever seen him. Max was rattled early on by a Yuli Gurriel solo homer. He continued to give up hits, but the Astros played themselves by having absolutely no RISP. Houston even bunted against Scherzer, which is probably one of the dumbest things I’ve seen in a long time.

 

Meanwhile, ZG was a world beyond. Cool as a cucumber, out there looking like the second coming of Greg Maddux both in fielding and in efficiency.

When AJ Hinch did pull Greinke, who was only at 80 pitches deep in the game, he was in a bit of a jam but honestly I still do not understand why he got taken out. And then instead of using Gerrit Cole, who was available and even warmed up a little, Hinch went with the exhausted Will Harris and the garbage human Osuna. I literally do not understand.

 

Washington had no problem bringing out the big dogs. After Scherzer did all he could do and gutted it out, Davey Martinez chose Patrick Corbin. At first, I was dubious, but Corbin redeemed himself mightily, and in fact, got the win.

Stephen Strasburg was your MVP, and well deserved. The man was outstanding in every way. Anthony Rendon broke the whole thing open and probably could have been co-MVP if we were honest with ourselves.

There’s something really beautiful about long suffering athletes who finally achieve their ultimate goal. Take a look at Anibal Sanchez and Max Scherzer, who have been here before, but finally get to take a ring home.

This brought me to tears. It’s truly beautiful. Congrats to these old warriors, and to the OG National Ryan Zimmerman. I am extremely happy for him because like Chipper Jones, David Wright, and Joe Mauer, Zimmerman has been with one team his entire career and chose to do so. He gets rewarded for his loyalty. That’s also a beautiful thing.

25 thoughts on “FOR ALL THE MARBLES – Recap of Game 7 – 2019 World Series”

  1. Big congrats to Someguy!! Your curly-dubs did not disappoint.

    I do feel bad for all the fans of both teams who likely shelled out some pretty large bucks for WS tickets and not one got to see their team win at home.

    Now we get to endure the long, cold offseason of our discontent. The only thing left this year is the media frenzy over the MLB awards.

    On the upside, it is 113 days until the first Spring Training game of 2020 and pitchers and catchers will report a bit before that.

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  2. Props, someguy. I find an extra four hours of sleep and plain old strong coffee woks better for a champagne hangover than all those horrible home remidies with raw eggs, Tabasco sauce and dog shit in them…..

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  3. As an aside, any bets which major sport will give us our next first-time champion? So far, 2019 has given us first-time winners in the NBA (Raptors), the NHL (Blues) and now MLB (Nationals). The MLS final in November won’t continue the trend, however, as both Seattle and Toronto have a title under their belt.

    As the great Bill Murray once told us… “Cinderella story. Outta nowhere…”

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  4. Very happy for the Nats and their fans. I believe this win was preordained because SomeGuy is a valued FI family member while Asstro fan Stex has deserted us. Even sweeter that they did it after Bryce Harper left.

    I agree with Prof that the decision to pull Grienke was wrong. I think it was a panic move by Hinch as ZG had been lights out all night long. Chances are he gets out of that inning without another run, then Hinch could have brought Cole in to start the 8th.

    And now into the dark, cold loneliness of the off season. Thanks to Prof & Scouts for another season of hard work on the weekday posts, to Happy for his weekend sermons, and the rest of the crew for their contributions. Already looking forward to the 2020 season, not that the Tiggers will be any better.

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    2. Thank you, Sparty. As you know, this blog is a labor of love for me at least, and it is always a pleasure to know that what I do matters to people, even if it’s just a baseball blog.

      Here’s hoping that this year’s winter meetings and FA season is way better than last year. I want a roaring fire hot stove!!!

      And yes, we are a family. But I take it a step further. Baseball is a family. I’ve always said it and I’ll always believe it. We love a game that at it’s best is nuanced, intelligent, but dorky and weird, and if you really love it, you’re probably all those things, too. We’re cut from the same cloth. Even darn Cardinals fans (Hi PL!) Lol

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  6. Was chatting with Prof online last night after the game, and I said something that I still believe to be true:

    The best team doesn’t always win the World Series, but these Nats are pretty freaking good.

    Their 93 win season, when compared to the Dodgers or Astros, made them seem to be bigger underdogs than they really were; they were 86-43 over their last 129 games (including the postseason), and you don’t put up a .667 winning percentage over that long a stretch without being pretty freaking good.

    If you tell me the Astros were a better team overall than the Nats, I won’t dispute it; they’re scary good, and to be honest, I’d pretty much given up hope by the 6th inning, when it seemed like the Nats were down 7 or so, what with all the traffic Houston had put on the bases and Greinke being unhittable. I even turned to my wife after the 6th inning, when it was 10:10PM ET or so, and said, “Well, at least it’ll end early…”

    I’m still not sure what got into Hinch’s mind last night. In some respects it brought back memories of the 2014 NLDS Game 2, when Matt Williams pulled Jordan Zimmerman in the 9th after he gave up a walk, and nine innings later the Nats were in an 0-2 hole that they couldn’t climb out of. (That’s the thing about being a Nats fan. Every single head scratching decision made by the other team this post-season, every time the Nats got a favorable bounce or ruling, I could say “That reminds me of the time in the 201X NLDS when that bad thing happened to the Nats.”) Anyway, to have Greinke basically cruising at 80 pitches in the 7th, and to have Cole available, and to decide that neither of them would throw another pitch in this World Series after the walk to Soto, well, I just can’t explain that, but the Nats capitalized, and now they’re world champs.

    So many veteran players on that team finally got their career validation last night; the only two players on the Nats’ 40 man roster who had a ring prior to tonight were Hunter Strickland and Tony Sipp, neither of whom were even on the World Series roster. Scherzer, Sanchez, Zimmerman, Strasburg, Corbin, Rendon, Suzuki, Gomes, Parra, Adams, Dozier, Cabrera, Eaton, Doolittle, Hudson, Kendrick; all those old guys all have a ring now.

    Now comes the off-season, and it’s possible that Strasburg and Rendon might both be playing elsewhere next year. Rendon’s a free agent, of course, and he’s already turned down an offer that had lots of deferred money (that’s how the Lerners roll), although not as much as the Harper contract offer. Strasburg has an opt-out, and he’s a Boras client, so he’s almost certain to exercise it, but the thinking is that since he moved his family to DC last off-season that he’ll probably get a Kershaw-type extension added on to the remaining four years ($100MM) that he has on his contract. That’s the hope with him, anyway, but all that’s for later, after the parade…

    In closing, I’ll leave you with this:

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    2. Oh my God, I forgot all about Parra, Dozier, and Adams! Those guys have been around the game forever, and usually on “just good enough” teams.

      I am not supposed to say this as a Braves fan, but I’m not mad this team won. This is a group of mostly Old Guys Getting It Done, and you know how much I love that.

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    3. Personally I’m most happy for Zim. Dude’s been around for a very long time and on very bad Nats teams and for a VERY long time he was the only bright spot on the squad. Really nice to see him finally get one. At 35 he’s reaching that age where retirement talk is not entirely out of the question. Any idea on if he’s sticking around for awhile longer?

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      1. His contract is supposed to pay him $20MM next year, I think, but with a $2MM team buyout.

        He’s definitely getting the buyout, because he can’t be relied on to be a power bat for 130+ games every year, and he vaguely talked a bit during the season about wanting to keep playing, and for the Nats, but understanding it would be in a reduced role. Maybe now that he’s got a ring he decides to retire, but I haven’t heard that talk.

        I trust the Nats will do the right thing by the team here. There’s always a risk that World Series winner means emotional attachment means overpays means long-term mediocrity, and while I don’t expect the Nats to be as bloodless as the Patriots are, I believe they’ll avoid most of that and make the correct financial decisions for the roster going forward.

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  7. For the record, I was personally not opposed to pulling Greinke out when they did. Now I haven’t gotten to watch him all year long, but he looked pretty gassed to me and from what they were saying, it was the longest outing of his in a while. He was losing the late touch on his pitches, which is what got him to where he was in the first place. I am fully confident that if he had been left in, he would have gotten lit up fast. What I did disagree with was who they brought it. Harris had no business entering the game. Osuna should have closed out the inning, possibly the next, and then Cole should have closed out the game.

    When the hell are managers going to learn that when there is literally no tomorrow, to stop leaving their best talent on the bench in obvious key, high leverage situations? Who gives a shit what inning it is? You need outs and you need to win! Stop clutching at the pearls and make the right call? It just astounds me we see the same mistakes repeated over and over again.

    Finally, I’m glad that Stras got MVP, but man it was a tough case with Rendon’s performance. Dude was all over the place with clutch, key hits when it was needed most.

    And mad props to Corbin’s lights out performance. He shut it down when they needed him most. I was very worried when he came in, because he’s had a not so stellar playoff run, but dude pitched the 3 best innings of his life when he needed it most.

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    1. Greinke generally looks like he’s struggling even when he’s not; that’s a feature, not a bug. LOL

      I mean, he WAS nearing the end, but I think he also could have gotten out of that jam and then next inning Cole could come up.

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