HOUSTON — He could have been Mad Max on a night his best was missing. Instead, he fenced and fought, shuffled and juggled.
And so did the Washington Nationals bullpen.
As the Houston Astros kept clawing within one big hit of a comeback, Scherzer and the Nationals just held on.
Scherzer got through five innings of Max-imum effort for a 5-4 victory in Tuesday night’s opener, becoming the first pitcher to win a World Series game for a Washington team since Earl Whitehill against the New York Giants in 1933.
Unable to overwhelm, Scherzer threw a bit of the ol’ razzle dazzle that included 112 pitches, nine full counts and six stranded runners.
Nationals manager Dave Martinez followed the once-unconventional and now by-the-postseason-book method of tapping starters for big-moment relief, bringing in Patrick Corbin for the sixth, the first of four heartburn-inducing relievers.
A three-time Cy Young Award winner and seven-time All-Star, Scherzer is seeking his first Series ring at age 35. His only previous time on baseball’s biggest stage was a no-decision in Game 4 for Detroit as San Francisco completed a four-game sweep in 2012.
He fell behind quickly against the Astros, walking George Springer, allowing a first-pitch single to José Altuve and giving up a two-out, two-run double to Yuli Gurriel that hit high off the left field wall.
Scherzer stranded one in the second by throwing a changeup past Springer for a called third strike, runners at the corners in the third by getting Carlos Correa to swing over a slider and two on in the fourth by getting Altuve on a soft groundout to first. Only in the fifth, when Corbin already was warming up, did Scherzer pitch a 1-2-3 inning.
Corbin pitched around a single in the sixth, and Tanner Rainey gave up a home run to Springer leading off the seventh, an inning that ended when Daniel Hudson struck out Yordan Álvarez on three pitches to leave the bases loaded.
Springer hit a run-scoring double off Hudson in the eighth, a ball that just missed becoming a tying, two-run homer and glanced off the glove of a leaping Adam Eaton at the right field wall. Springer might have gotten to third had he not taken a few hops out of the batter’s box, thinking had homered again, and he might have been able to tag up and score on Altuve’s fly to right. Kyle Tucker initially tagged up at second on the long drive, which also might have prevented Springer from having a chance to reach third.
Instead, he was left at second and became the Astros’ 11th stranded runner when Michael Bradley sliced an opposite-field liner to left.
When Doolittle pitched a perfect ninth that ended with Correa’s soft flyout to center, it was just the second 1-2-3 inning for Washington, which could exhale for the first time all game.
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