Just as everyone predicted, the Cardinals went into Atlanta and scored 10 runs in the first inning, and the Nationals went into Dodger Stadium and hit back-to-back, game-tying home runs off Clayton Kershaw in the eighth inning, then took the lead on Howie Kendrick's grand slam in the 10th.
The 106-win Dodgers will not be the first National League team since the 1921-24 New York Giants to win three consecutive pennants. The NL East champs are out of the MLB playoffs. We have the Cardinals and Nationals in the NL Championship Series. Here are six reasons each team can make it to the World Series ... and three key questions.
St. Louis Cardinals
1. Jack Flaherty. The 23-year-old is the hottest pitcher in the game right now (well, him or Gerrit Cole). Including his two starts against the Braves, he has a 1.12 ERA in the second half, with an opponents' batting line of .155/.217/.238 and seven home runs allowed in 112⅓ innings. Some wanted an early hook for Flaherty after the 10-run first inning in Game 5 so he could start Game 1 or 2 of the NLCS. That would have been getting a little too cute. Why burn through the bullpen? Flaherty is now in line to start Games 3 and 7, which isn't the worst scenario. If the series goes that far, the Cardinals will feel confident sending Flaherty to the mound in Game 7. Of course, you have to get to Game 7 to get him that second start. Maybe you win in six!
Some in the #STLCards front office contemplated the idea of pulling Jack Flaherty early to use him in Game 1 of the NLCS. "I quickly put that to bed saying, 'Win the game,' John Mozeliak said."I think when you start getting cute and trying to manipulate things, it gets dangerous.
— Mark Saxon (@markasaxon) October 10, 2019
2. Defense. The Cardinals made a couple of miscues against the Braves, but they had an excellent defensive season, ranking third in the majors with plus-95 defensive runs saved. Since Baseball Info Solutions first tracked DRS in 2003, that's the best total by a Cardinals team. The middle-infield duo of Kolten Wong and Paul DeJong lead the way with plus-14 DRS apiece, and Yadier Molina anchors everything behind the plate. The Cards become an even better defensive squad when Harrison Bader plays center field and Tommy Edman shifts to third, replacing Dexter Fowler and Matt Carpenter, respectively.
3. Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright. Back in 2006, Wainwright was a rookie reliever for the Cardinals. When Jason Isringhausen was injured in September, Wainwright took over as closer, pitched 9⅔ scoreless innings in the postseason, saved four games and got the final outs of the NLCS and World Series. His catcher, of course, was Molina, and if you want a good story to root for, you can do worse than seeing if these two warhorses -- the beloved heart and soul of the franchise for so long -- can get one more ring.
Both came up big in the National League Division Series. Wainwright tossed 7⅔ scoreless innings in his Game 3 start, and manager Mike Shildt showed so much faith in him that he let him throw 120 pitches -- maybe too much faith, as Andrew Miller had to rescue him from a bases-loaded jam. Wainwright had his curveball working to perfection against the Braves, throwing it a season-high 47.5% of the time. That's a big weapon.
Molina's impact is mostly leadership and defense at this point in his career. He did have two clutch RBIs in Game 4 against the Braves, but that snapped a streak of 15 consecutive postseason games without an RBI. He hit .270 this year and will battle to put the ball in play, so he's always a tough out.
4. Paul Goldschmidt. The six-time All-Star didn't have a superlative season in his first year in St. Louis, as his 113 OPS+ was easily his lowest figure since his partial rookie season in 2011. After a big July, he also finished strong in September, hitting .269/.405/.548 with a 22-26 walk-to-strikeout ratio, and he stayed hot against the Braves, hitting .429 with four doubles and two home runs with just two strikeouts. A locked-in Goldschmidt gives the Cardinals the big threat in the middle of the lineup that they lacked most of the season.
5. Tommy Edman. I love this switch-hitting, 24-year-old rookie out of Stanford. He would fit right in with those 1980s Cardinals teams. He can run (top-25 overall sprint speed in the majors), he plays an above-average third base (basically pushing Carpenter to the bench the final two months, though Edman will also play right field with Carpenter at third), and he hit a surprising .304/.350/.500 in 92 games, with seven triples boosting his slugging percentage. He had three doubles and a triple against the Braves and struck out just once in the five games. He's an energy, spark-plug kind of guy in the lineup, one who is easy to overlook but can do damage.
6. Cardinals voodoo magic. Don't deny the existence of some sort of supernatural jury of baseball gods who twist the fates to make sure their favorite teams win every so often. The Cardinals have had just one losing season this century, with 13 playoff appearances and four trips to the World Series. It's about time for another title. Plus, the weird thing about Cardinals history is that their best teams don't win the World Series, but some of the good-not-great ones do. Consider:
• The 1985 Cardinals won 101 games and outscored their opponents by 175 runs. They lost the World Series to the Royals. But the 1982 Cardinals, winners of 92 games with a plus-76 run differential, won the World Series.
• The 2004 Cards were an offensive powerhouse, with Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen each posting an OPS over 1.000. They won 105 games, but the Red Sox swept them in the World Series. The 2006 Cardinals won a bad division with just 83 wins, barely outscored their opponents and won it all.
• The 2013 Cardinals won 97 games but lost the World Series to the Red Sox. The 2015 Cardinals won 100 games but lost in the division series. The 2011 Cardinals won just 90 games, made the playoffs as a wild card on the final day of the season and beat the Rangers in the World Series when the gods prevented Nelson Cruz from catching that fly ball.
So, yes, it's setting up for the 2019 Cardinals, the team with the fewest wins of the eight teams that made the division series, to win another World Series.
Three questions
Will Shildt make the right moves? The Cardinals manager had a couple of questionable decisions against the Braves, most notably the bad intentional walk to Brian McCann in the ninth inning of Game 2, which put the go-ahead run on base with two outs. McCann's pinch runner wound up scoring the go-ahead run. Shildt also left a tiring Wainwright in too long in that game -- perhaps showing too much veteran loyalty -- and hit Molina fifth throughout the series, ahead of better hitters.
Can Carlos Martinez be trusted? The St. Louis closer had a 3.17 ERA in the regular season and allowed just two home runs in 48⅓ innings. Then he promptly served up two home runs in Game 1 and blew the save in Game 3. He then pitched a scoreless inning in Game 4. Bottom line: You can run away from Martinez, but your best chances of winning include him doing the job in the ninth inning.
Who starts Game 2? With Wainwright presumably starting Game 1, Miles Mikolas or Dakota Hudson appears to be the Game 2 option. The Game 2 starter would be lined up for a second start in the series in Game 6. Hudson had a 2.82 ERA the final two months, but he walked 34 batters in 51 innings and gave up four runs (one earned) in 4⅔ innings in his NLDS start. Hudson's high walk rate is a scary proposition in the postseason. Mikolas probably gets the call.
Washington Nationals
1. The big three. Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin went a combined 43-20 in the regular season, with a 3.18 ERA. Considering that the Nationals were 24 games over .500, that means the rest of the pitchers were just a game over .500 in their decisions. Strasburg led the NL in wins and innings, all three ranked in the top 10 in ERA, Scherzer led in strikeout rate, they ranked 2-3-4 in total strikeouts and 2-4-6 in WAR, and they've thrown 36 of the team's 54 innings so far in the postseason. The Nats do it the old-fashioned way: dominant starting pitching.
A note to consider: While the Nationals have three aces compared to just one for the Cardinals, it's also important that all three are veterans who have pitched into October before and carried big workloads over the entire season. Flaherty, a second-year vet who has blown past his career high in professional innings, is entering new territory. With the Cardinals pushing for the division title, Shildt worked him hard down the stretch. Flaherty's pitch counts since the beginning of September: 113, 112, 102, 118, 98, 69, 117, 104. He seems to be getting stronger, but fatigue could become an issue.
Of course, all three Nationals starters appeared in relief to get to the NLCS, as Dave Martinez correctly relied on his best pitchers to move through the wild-card game and division series. There isn't much time to recover. In fact, since Corbin pitched in relief in Games 3 and 5 (57 total pitches) and Scherzer and Strasburg started Games 4 and 5, it could be Anibal Sanchez who gets the ball in the NLCS opener.
2. The big two. Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto are two of the best hitters in the world, and their stunning back-to-back home runs off Kershaw to tie Game 5 -- Soto's was an absolute moon blast, a 449-foot rocket deep into the center-field bleachers -- was a division-series exclamation point on their seasons. Rendon has hit .350/.423/.650 in six playoff games and Soto .273/.385/.545. What makes them so tough is that they're hitters, not just guys who can hit it over the fence. Rendon drew almost as many walks (80) as he had strikeouts (86). Soto, the 20-year-old phenom, drew 108 walks. Rendon hit .316 with power against lefties and .320 with power against righties. Soto hit .281/.416/.584 against righties, but as he showed against Kershaw, he's pretty good against southpaws as well (.285/.371/.478). Good luck with them.
3. The back of the bullpen might not be terrible. Look, the Nationals had the worst bullpen ERA ever for a playoff team. There was a reason Martinez used his starters in relief. If the starters go deep enough, however, he might need to rely on only Daniel Hudson and Sean Doolittle, and Tanner Rainey has some filthy stuff. Is this Mariano Rivera, Mike Stanton and Jeff Nelson? No. But Hudson had a solid enough year between the Blue Jays and Nationals. Doolittle has been one of the best relievers for several years now. Take away that five-game stretch in August in which he allowed 10 runs -- and then went on the injured list with a sore knee -- and he was very good. Since returning in September, Doolittle has allowed four hits in 11⅓ innings (granted, two of them were home runs). Rainey got two big outs in Game 5 against the Dodgers and fanned 74 in 48⅓ innings in the regular season, averaging 97.8 mph with his fastball. He can be wild, but he is the kind of explosive reliever who can have three hot weeks in October.
4. Depth on the bench. We saw this in Game 5, when Howie Kendrick started at second base and blasted the winning grand slam off Joe Kelly. You know who has the highest batting average in the majors the past three seasons? Kendrick, at .325. He can play first or second and is another guy who is tough to strike out. The Cardinals have an all-righty rotation, so if Martinez wants another lefty in the lineup, he can play switch-hitter Asdrubal Cabrera at second, with Kendrick or Ryan Zimmerman at first. Matt Adams provides a power lefty bat off the bench, as does Brian Dozier. With Victor Robles battling a sore hamstring and missing the final three games of the NLDS, Michael Taylor stepped in at center field and at least gives the Nats a good defender there if Robles can't go. In the NL game, you need a strong bench, and the Nationals have one -- though after carrying just 11 pitchers against the Dodgers, they'll probably add another one at the expense of one of the position players. Then again, would Martinez even trust the 12th guy on the staff?
5. The Nationals don't strike out (relatively speaking). Speaking of guys who are tough outs, the Nationals struck out the second-fewest times in the National League (the Pirates struck out the fewest, so not striking isn't a good thing by itself). The Cardinals' pitching staff, meanwhile, was below average in strikeouts. So we have a good contact team against more of a contact staff. Put it this way: Against the Dodgers, whose pitchers led the NL in strikeout rate and who used only their best pitchers in a short series, the Nationals struck out 22.1% of the time, which is still less than the NL average in the regular season.
6. Nothing to lose. The Nationals were 19-31 on May 23, the second-worst record in the NL. They had been outscored by 40 runs. They were already 10 games out of first place. Martinez might have been a few losses away from getting fired. But they figured it out. After that date, they went 74-38, tied with the Dodgers for the second-best record in the majors (half a game worse than Houston's). So they've been great for four-plus months. Considering where they were on May 23, everything now is gravy. They were a wild-card team. They've gotten the franchise monkey of never winning a playoff series off their backs. They can play loose and easy. Cardinals voodoo magic? Scherzer, Strasburg and Corbin have a little magic of their own.
Three questions
Is there enough bullpen depth? It's one thing to use starters in relief in a short series, when the pressure to win every game is higher. It's a little more difficult to do it over seven games, when you have to factor in who might start the next day or in two days or in three days. Even if Hudson and Doolittle pitch well, at some point, the Nationals will probably need some key outs from somebody else in the bullpen. Do they trust Fernando Rodney, Hunter Strickland or Wander Suero?
How will Soto fare against all those two-seam fastballs from the Cardinals? Unlike most lefties, Soto is a pure high-ball hitter, ranking second in the majors in OPS on pitches in the upper half of the strike zone. He had a 1.163 OPS in the upper half and .753 in the lower half. Look for Flaherty, Mikolas and Hudson to feed Soto a steady diet of pitches below the belt.
What does Scherzer have left in the tank? He threw 200 pitches in seven days and said "my arm is hanging right now" after his seven-inning stint in Game 4 against the Dodgers. His September wasn't that great (5.16 ERA), and he missed most of July and August with back issues. He was very good in Game 4, much more prime Max than in his wild-card start. The Nationals will need more of that.