Game one of this Nationals League Division Series seemed over within minutes after Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins waved his red Nationals towel and declared from the top of the Nationals dugout – “Play Ball.”
It did end nearly four hours later – a 4-3 Los Angeles Dodgers win in game one. He who wins game one usually wins these five-game series.
After the Los Angeles Dodgers scored a run off Washington starter Max Scherzer with a home run by Corey Seager on the eighth pitch of the game — before some of the 43,000 fans who packed Nationals Park had barely gotten in their seats — what was the point of playing ball after that?
After all, 10-foot tall Clayton Kershaw was on the mound, the second coming of Sandy Koufax. A one-run lead before he even took the mound? Game over.
“Playing on the road to get that first run is huge,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “In a short series like this, you want to win the first game.”
They did keep playing, though, and it got worse. The Dodgers scored three in the top of the third inning on a two-run home run by Justin Turner, and Scherzer, given the ball by manager Dusty Baker to open the series and carry the team with his right arm, seemed tiny in comparison to the giant he was facing in Kershaw.
But then the Nationals began cutting Kershaw – one of the best pitchers in the game who has struggled in the postseason — down to size in the bottom of the third inning. Bryce Harper doubled. Jayson Werth walked. After Daniel Murphy flied out to left, Harper and Werth pulled off a double steal off Kershaw, who had just allowed one stolen base in 149 innings pitched. Anthony Rendon singled to left, scoring Harper and Werth and cutting the Dodgers lead to 4-2
After Ryan Zimmerman singled to left, it seemed like Kershaw – and the game – was there for the taking for Washington. But Danny Espinosa – he of the three-strikeout, six-men-left-on-base Espinosas – struck out to end the inning.
“He (Espinosa) didn’t have a very good night,” Baker said.
The game was right there again for the taking in the fourth inning when Trea Turner brought Pedro Severino home with a sacrifice fly to make it 4-3. And again, there it was in the fifth inning when Werth singled to left, Murphy popped up to short, and Rendon singled to left. But Zimmerman flied out to right and Espinosa – well, you know what Espinosa did.
Then the worst thing that could happen to Washington happened – the Dodgers took the feared Kershaw out of the game.
“We had him on the ropes a couple of times,” Baker said. “The big hit just escaped us.”
It truly was over after that, as the Los Angeles bullpen – the best in the National League, just ahead of Washington’s pen — shut out the Nationals over the final four innings to seal the 4-3 win.
Tanner Roark gets the ball for Washington Saturday for game two, but this game one loss loom large. Real large. Humongous.
“This is a game that obviously in any short series you want to win the first game,” Roberts said. “And when your ace doesn’t have his best stuff and you still find a way to win…Clayton is going to take the mound again in this series if it comes to that.
“In some sense you feel like you steal one when he doesn’t have his best stuff because you know he’s going to be throwing well the next time he gets the ball.”
Thom Loverro hosts his weekly podcast “Cigars & Curveballs” Wednesdays available on iTunes and Google Play.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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