'Adrenaline is beyond normal': Who will win Nationals-Brewers NL wild-card game?
Now entering its eighth postseason, Major League Baseball’s wild-card game has a penchant for the insane, games quickly going sideways as two accomplished teams navigate nine innings knowing it’s an all-out sprint to the relative safety of the Division Series.
So what will it look like Tuesday evening at Nationals Park, when two clubs that pulled out of valleys suggesting all was lost take their damn-the-torpedoes mentality into the National League’s one-game shootout?
"You’ve seen it over the years – weird things sometimes happen in this game, with this must-win format," says Nationals closer Sean Doolittle, an Oakland Athletic when they lost the 2014 wild-card game 9-8 to a Kansas City Royals squad that featured current Brewers Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain.
"With everything we’ve gone through, everything we’ve seen throughout the course of this season, it’s been such a roller-coaster ride that we’re not going to panic, we’re going to stay in it for all 27 outs and grind it out like we have all season long."
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For the Nationals, it was a 19-31 start that featured the worst bullpen in baseball and a manager ostensibly headed to the unemployment line after a second consecutive playoff-less season.
They finished 74-38, a historically brilliant clip for a team that started so badly. Washington finished its season on an eight-game winning streak.
For the Brewers, 13 wins in the 15 games immediately following the loss of reigning MVP Christian Yelich dumbfounded observers and thrust them firmly into wild-card status and just a game off the NL Central pace. The notion of an NL Central title wilted in a three-game sweep at the hands of Colorado to end the regular season, but the Brewers took plenty of good vibes with them on a Sunday flight to D.C.
Here’s what to expect when a pair of survivors clash with their seasons on the line:
Starting blocks
It was clear when this matchup seemed inevitable that both clubs would embrace their identities: The Brewers by starting a hard-throwing opener who will go as long as he can, and the Nationals rolling out one of their three dominant aces.
The past few days provided the specifics.
The Nationals will hand the ball to three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer, convinced he’s 100% after a second return from a vexing back injury. Scherzer posted a 5.16 ERA in five September starts – the span in which he crossed the six-inning threshold since going on the Injured List in July – and gave up six home runs in 29 ⅔ innings.
Those are rather alarming numbers going into a game that requires such precision, and with 18-game winner Stephen Strasburg rested and available, the Nationals open themselves to mild second-guessing by giving the ball to Scherzer.
Manager Dave Martinez seemed to indicate Scherzer will find an extra gear Tuesday night.
“I think he’s going to be better than fine,” says Martinez. “We’ve kind of limited him; we haven’t really let him get after it like he wants to. He’s ready to throw 120 pitches, according to him, so we’ll see.
“His adrenaline is beyond normal right now.”
The Brewers leaned on unconventional pitcher usage all the way to Game 7 of the 2018 NL Championship Series and will do so again in this do-or-die game. First up: All-Star Brandon Woodruff, who struck out 20 in 12 ⅓ playoff innings last season, shutting out opponents in three of his four appearances. He gave up no home runs while hitting one himself – off future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, no less.
Ideally, manager Craig Counsell would turn Woodruff’s 97-mph fastball loose deep into the game; Woodruff completed at least six innings in 12 of his 22 starts this year and touched the seventh in six of them. But like Scherzer, Woodruff is building back from a debilitating injury – an oblique strain that shelved him from July 21-Sept. 17.
He pitched two hitless innings in each of his two outings since returning from injury, reaching 38 pitches in his second appearance.
"it’s the playoffs," Counsell said Monday, "so I have no problem pushing him."
If Woodruff can touch 50 pitches Tuesday and cover three innings – perhaps even into the fourth – that would significantly boost the Brewers’ win probability.
Checkers and chess
Counsell is in a tricky spot: With Yelich out and center fielder Lorenzo Cain questionable at best with an ankle sprain, he'll have to play his matchup game with far fewer horses than the Nationals.
The Brewers’ path to victory lies in covering the innings between Woodruff and shutdown reliever Josh Hader – who may appear as early as the seventh inning in this setting. Like Hader, Counsell’s other most trustworthy relievers – Drew Pomeranz and Brent Suter, the NL's September pitcher of the month – are also left-handed, which bodes well against gifted second-year slugger Juan Soto.
But a Nationals lineup that goes right-left-right-left-right with Trea Turner, Adam Eaton, MVP candidate Anthony Rendon, Soto and the unstoppable Howie Kendrick (at 36, a .966 OPS) may create mid- and late-inning nightmares for Counsell. Pomeranz held lefty hitters to a .666 OPS, but righties raked him for an .863 OPS in 323 plate appearances.
Martinez, meanwhile, will rest easier if his only pitchers who see the mound are aces Scherzer, Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and relievers Daniel Hudson and Sean Doolittle. The decision to start Scherzer – who has come out of the bullpen 10 times in his career and three times in the postseason – is even more debatable given that Strasburg has never appeared in relief and is something of a creature of habit.
Whether Strasburg can consume an inning or two – and you’d have to assume he won’t enter mid-inning – may determine if Martinez can avoid less-consistent bullpen pieces like Fernando Rodney, Tanner Rainey, Javy Guerra and Hunter Strickland.
Watch out for…
Keston Hiura: The Brewers rookie second baseman actually hits right-handers better than lefties (1.021 OPS vs. .673) and hit 19 homers in 314 at-bats this year. Might be the Brewers’ best bet to ambush Scherzer early.
Trea Turner: He enters on a 12-game hitting streak, during which he’s batted .352 with five home runs, a 1.116 OPS and three stolen bases in as many attempts. The Nationals took off shortly after his return from a right index finger fracture in May and he finished the year with 19 homers, 35 steals and a .353 OBP.
In the end
What happens when you mix a warm night, a juiced ball and a one-game playoff? We’re about to find out. In the 2017 wild-card games – a season in which the ball hopped, but not like this one – the Yankees beat the Twins 8-4 while the Diamondbacks outlasted the Rockies 11-8. We see a similar path Tuesday night, and lean ever so slightly to the squad with a deeper, hotter lineup and home field advantage.
Prediction: Nationals 7, Brewers 6