At 3:12 p.m. on Sunday, there was hope of shaving another game off the lead. The bottom-feeding Boston Red Sox remained in a tussle with the New York Mets. Boston outfielder Mookie Betts tripled to tie the game at four in the seventh inning in New York. Along the water at Nationals Park, Bryce Harper flipped a pitch to left for a single. His hit scored Jayson Werth, drawing the Washington Nationals even with the Miami Marlins.
Trouble is, the Mets found one more hit, one more run, just enough in what seems to be a never-ending surge. They won. The Nationals won, 7-4. Another half-empty day in Washington, kicked in the shins by another injury. The Nationals are 5 1/2 games out of first place with September a day away. Their task of gaining ground on the Mets remains unlikely and just south of unreasonable.
The latest injury issue comes from starter Stephen Strasburg. His velocity dipped on Sunday, settling around 93 to 94 mph. The lightning from the last four starts was dormant. He left the game after four innings and just 60 pitches. Manager Matt Williams said Strasburg had “upper back discomfort,” which also hounded him earlier in the season. Strasburg described a “knot” in his back that can cause pain. It’s sporadic. The source is unclear.
“Last time it crept up, we got the treatment and one to two days, it felt normal,” Strasburg said. “It’s something you have to just grind through it, get through the year, then figure exactly what it is in the offseason.”
Meanwhile, the division chase goes on. The Mets do not go unspoken in the Nationals’ clubhouse. Last week, reliever Casey Janssen sat on a couch and watched the end of yet another New York win. He quietly turned off the flat-screen TV and walked back to his locker.
The Mets’ loss on Friday night was wasted by the Nationals, when they lost to the Marlins. On Saturday, some of the players knew before their night game started that a rung on the ladder was open following another Mets loss. They checked before the game.
“I don’t know about everybody else, [but] I do,” Clint Robinson said. “That’s who we’re chasing in the playoff race.”
It’s hard to miss the Mets’ status at National Park. In the top of the eighth inning on Sunday, the Mets’ result resided in its usual home in the top left corner of the out-of-town scoreboard, which is embedded into the right-center field fence. It showed a 5-4 score next to “3 out, F.”
Nationals players say winning series after series is their formula for pulling in the Mets. Thus far, it has not been enough. Washington has won four consecutive series and have lost a game in the standings during that time.
In the Wild Card era, since 1995, two teams have risen from being 5 1/2 games behind on Aug. 30 to win a division. The Seattle Mariners did it in 1995, and the Minnesota Twins followed in 2006. The indication from both those seasons is that the Nationals not only need to maintain their course, but the Mets need to fall down a well.
Seattle’s late-season burst produced the “Refuse to lose” slogan, phrasing emboldened by numerous comebacks in Seattle’s raucous Kingdome. The Mariners were 16-13 in August, then throttled through September at 19-8. That forced a one-game playoff with the California Angels. Randy Johnson struck out 12 batters and destroyed no birds in a complete game. The Mariners vaulted into the playoffs.
Their run was backed by the Angels’ collapse. They led the division by as many as 11 games at one point. They were in first place for 115 days. A 13-17 performance in August preceded a 10-16 finish in September. With the team wallowing at 52-59 the next season, manager Marcel Lachemann resigned.
The Twins’ move to the front followed a similar path. Minnesota’s 16-12 record in August was followed by an 18-11 effort in September. They tracked down the Detroit Tigers. Oddly, the Twins were swept in the playoffs and Detroit advanced to the World Series out of the Wild Card spot.
Those tales do not daunt Jayson Werth — nor does the Nationals’ 12-16 performance in August. He was part of a glorious result out of more dire circumstance.
On September 12, 2007, the Philadelphia Phillies lost, 12-0, to the Colorado Rockies. The pummeling dropped them seven games behind the Mets with 17 games to play. Werth was 1-for-3 that day. The engraver began working on the tombstone.
Then, one of the most staggering turnarounds in major-league history began. Philadelphia used a 13-4 run to move into first place. The Mets went 5-12. After tying for the division lead Sept. 27, the Phillies moved in front by a game, fell back to a tie, then won the division on the final day of the season, when they beat the Nationals, 6-1.
“We won enough games to get us there,” Werth said. “I don’t think there’s any formula to that. I have no choice not to believe. I’m not going to fold up my chair and pack it in, that’s for sure. Play this long with these guys, you believe in each other, you get to this point in the season, you’ve got nothing else to do but believe.”
• Todd Dybas can be reached at tdybas@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.