Washington Nationals on brink of history in 2019 World Series
The Washington Nationals enter the 2019 World Series with a chance to win that elusive title and finish a plan that was put in place 10 years ago.
It really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the Washington Nationals are in the 2019 World Series.
After all, they entered the season as the favorites to win the NL East by most experts.
But as well all know, baseball is anything but predictable, and on May 23rd the Nationals found themselves 12 games under .500 and 10 games back in the NL East.
Many were looking to fire manager Dave Martinez, and a once-promising season seemed lost.
As we all know, from that point on the Nationals were one of the best teams in all of baseball finishing the season 74-38 and earning the top spot in the NL Wild Card game where they dispatched of the Milwaukee Brewers.
They entered the postseason playing their best baseball of the year and took down the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
And then the St. Louis Cardinals proved no match as the Nationals’ pitching staff shut them down in a four-game sweep to advance to their first-ever World Series.
But this season isn’t just about overcoming great obstacles in 2019, this is a team that appears to be exorcising its postseason demons and becoming the team they were meant to be.
I know this word is overused this time of year, but the Nationals seem like a team of destiny going into the 2019 World Series.
However, they have one more roadblock in there way to complete a path that was started years ago.
A trip down memory lane
The Nationals are no stranger to the postseason as they’ve now been there five of the past eight seasons.
But success in the postseason is certainly something new was the Washington franchise.
Coming into the 2019 postseason, as you all know, the Nationals had lost four consecutive division series.
A lot of them came with a lot of heartbreak as they lost three of those series in a fifth and deciding game.
But enough about that scary past, because this team is putting all of that behind them with this postseason run.
After they won the NL Wild Card game a lot of people made the comment that they still hadn’t put their postseason demons behind them because it wasn’t a series win.
And after going down two-games-to-one in the NLDS to the Dodgers, who had gone to back-to-back World Series and were the NL favorite to do so again, many thought those postseason demons had crept back up.
But this year it’s different, and this team is different.
They silenced all of the doubters and put that ugly postseason history in the past by taking down the Dodgers in games four and five, including a dramatic extra-innings win in Game 5.
At that point, it seemed like this team got that monkey off their back and the sky is now the limit.
Completing the plan put in place
The Washington Nationals still have one more step to take in this 2019 World Series, but they’re on the verge of completing a plan that was put in place a long time ago.
Mike Rizzo took over as the Washington Nationals general manager in 2009, the same year the Nationals took Stephen Strasburg first overall in the MLB Draft.
The next year they took Bryce Harper first overall, and then the year after that they took Anthony Rendon sixth overall.
That would be the last time the Nationals picked in the first half of the MLB Draft as they began a run of success by making the postseason in 2012.
Rizzo was building the foundation of a winner in Washington, while owner Ted Lerner was willing to open up his checkbook when needed to give Rizzo all the tools he needed.
Rizzo used those resources to acquire and sign guys like Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin to pair with Strasburg.
He also pulled the trigger at the right time in trades for Trea Turner and Adam Eaton.
And then, of course, there was the foresight to sign 16-year-old Juan Soto back in 2015 when he was ranked as just the 25th best international prospect — props to you if you recognize five names ahead of Soto on that list.
All of these moves were made to put the Washington Nationals on this path and in a position to make history for this franchise.
Historic pitching matchups. dark. Next
While it may come to a surprise to some who haven’t been paying attention, this is something that has been in the works for a decade that has finally come to fruition.
This team was destined to be here, they deserve to be here.