Washington Nationals World Series: 3 takeaways from blowout win in Game 2

Here we discuss the most critical moments from Game 2 of the 2019 World Series where the Washington Nationals earned a blowout victory.

Raise your hand if you had the Washington Nationals leaving Houston with 2-0 lead in the World Series?

It’s hard to believe that even diehard Washington Nationals fans saw this coming. But that’s the reality after the Nats went into Minute Maid Park and took down two of the best starting pitchers in all of baseball.

Once again, we got a great pitching matchup as Stephen Strasburg took the mound against Justin Verlander in Game 2.

After both pitchers gave up a pair of first inning runs, they settled down and gave us the duel we were expecting.

But still, neither pitcher was able to record an out in the seventh inning; although, Verlander would start the top of the seventh, and it would be his undoing.

Things unraveled quickly for Verlander and the Astros in that seventh innings as the Nationals broke open a 2-2 game by scoring 6 runs in the inning.

At that point, the game was essentially over, but the Nats offense kept pouring it on to make the final score 12-3.

As always, the final score doesn’t tell the whole story of a baseball game. There were several moments in this game were things could have gone in a different direction.

From Altuve gifting the Nats an out by getting caught stealing in the first — costing the Astros a run and more pitches for Strasburg — to Bregman being unable to make a huge play in the seventh.

But make no mistake, the Washington Nationals went into Houston and took care of business, earning a commanding 2-0 series lead.

Surviving the first inning

We talked about it in our Game 2 preview, but one of the biggest keys for Stephen Strasburg was trying to survive the first inning.

The Houston Astros have been really good at scoring in the first inning this postseason with 10 first-inning runs. And they’ve scored in the first inning in four straight postseason games now, and in three straight games they’ve scored multiple runs in the first inning.

And we all know Strasburg has struggled in the first inning throughout his career with an ERA of 3.99 in the first inning. And it’s been even worse this year with a 4.26 ERA in the first inning this season.

It looked like this was another game where things might get away from Strasburg in the first inning as Jose Altuve hit a one-out double.

But in maybe an overlooked play in this game, Altuve was caught stealing trying to take third.

Of course, you never know how differently things play out if Altuve just stays on second base, but two batters later Alex Bregman hit a two-run home run that would have given the Astros a 3-2 lead, but instead just tied it up.

But maybe even bigger than that, it helped Strasburg keep his pitch count down.

If Altuve stays put, there is a good chance Strasburg has to face at least one more batter in that first inning, forcing him to throw more pitches.

He wound up throwing 114 pitches over 6 innings, but maybe he gets pulled sooner if he has to throw those extra pitches in the first.

You never know, but looking back, that caught stealing in the first inning saved Strasburg from more first inning trouble, and possibly allowed him to work deeper in this game.

About that seventh inning…

There is so much to unravel in this seventh inning.

But once again, it was Kurt Suzuki who got things started as he led off the inning with a monster home run to give the Nats a 3-2 lead.

Suzuki also got the fifth inning rally started in Game 1 with a leadoff walk.

After the home run, Verlander walked Victor Robles and was taken out of the game at 107 pitches.

And you really can’t blame Astros reliever Ryan Pressly. He quickly got two outs and it looked like he was going to escape this jam and keep it a one-run game.

But after an intentional walk to load the bases, things got out of hand … quickly.

In what is by far the biggest play of the game, in my opinion, Bregman was unable to come up with a groundball between third and short.

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It would have been a difficult play, but it’s one that Bregman probably makes 9-out-of-10 times.

Instead, the ball kicks out of his glove and the Nats take a 4-2 lead.

And then the wheels fell off for the Astros as Cabrera drove in two to make it 6-2, and then Bregman allowed another run to score on a throwing error.

The Nationals scored 6 runs in that seventh inning and put Game 2 on ice.

It’s an old cliche, but this is sometimes a game of inches. And if that ball that Howie Kendrick hits to Bregman is even half an inch closer to the third baseman, there is no telling how the rest of this game plays out.

As it is, the Washington Nationals did all of the little things right in this game, while the Astros didn’t.

And that’s the biggest reason why the Washington Nationals are going back home with a 2-0 lead in the World Series.