Nationals celebrate banner year: Top 10 moments from their World Series run

Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez found a faint silver lining to the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on the sports world.

Martinez recently told ESPN that the way he sees it, because the 2020 Major League Baseball season is delayed and won’t finish on a regular schedule, the Nationals get to call themselves World Series champions for a longer time than any team before them.

“I tell the boys, think of it this way, we hold the trophy for a lot longer than anybody else,” he said. “I think about that moment when we come back and get those beautiful rings and put up that banner in the stadium.”

Everyone needs some good vibes these days, so with Martinez’s point in mind, think back to the good old days of baseball by reflecting on the top 10 Nationals moments from the past year.

10. Regular season: Nats come from behind to beat Mets 11-10

The Nationals went just 7-12 against the Amazins in 2019, but their game Sept. 3 was unlike any other. New York opened up a 10-4 lead in the ninth before the Nationals pulled off this insane comeback with six consecutive hits, culminating in a Kurt Suzuki walk-off three-run home run. Radio broadcasters Charlie Slowes and Dave Jageler rightfully pointed out that if you were at that game but left early, “You blew it!”

9. Regular season: “Baby Shark” catches fire

Every Nationals fan knows how to sing “Baby Shark” now, whether they asked for it or not. Gerardo Parra made the children’s earworm his walk-up music during May, not knowing it would become a tongue-in-cheek theme song for the rest of the Nationals’ run. But if there was one moment that it truly won fans’ hearts over, we think it was this game in July when the phenomenon hit the mainstream:

You’ve gotta see Gerardo Parra’s Baby Shark intro.

This is WILD. pic.twitter.com/kjmb6vaoUl

— Cut4 (@Cut4) July 24, 2019

8. Nationals win NLCS: Martinez’s famous ’bumpy roads’ quote

You might remember that the Nationals started their season 19-31. Come October, that’s all anyone could talk about when discussing Washington’s run. It represented how improbable the turnaround truly was. Martinez — who faced calls for his firing back in May — said it best right after the Nationals swept the Cardinals in the NLCS: “Often bumpy roads lead to beautiful places. And this is a beautiful place.”

7. World Series Game 1: Ryan Zimmerman homers

Who better to hit the first home run in Nationals’ World Series history than Mr. National himself? When the 35-year-old Zimmerman launched a solo home run in the second inning of Game 1, he became the third-oldest player to homer in his first-ever World Series plate appearance. But it symbolized much more than that for Washington, where Zimmerman was the first draft pick in franchise history and the only player to play in all of the Nationals’ 15 seasons in town.

6. World Series parade and/or White House visit

This isn’t as high on the list as the exact moment the Nationals clinched the title, but the celebration was memorable in its own right. First came the World Series parade on Nov. 2, where Max Scherzer, Juan Soto, Anthony Rendon and company took the party downtown. Two days later, most of the team visited the White House to be honored by President Trump in the Rose Garden.

5. Regular season: Scherzer’s black eye game

Let’s not forget one of the most iconic images of the baseball season that had nothing to do with the playoffs. On June 19, Scherzer turned around from a potentially embarrassing accident, in which he broke his nose and suffered a shiner while practicing bunting, and dominated in his scheduled start the very next day. Seven scoreless innings, 10 strikeouts. Remarkable.

4. NL Wild Card Game: Juan Soto’s 3-run double saves Nats from early elimination

Despite catching fire in the second half of the regular season, the Nationals easily could have been one-and-done in the playoffs if not for the wunderkid Soto. The Milwaukee Brewers looked poised to leave Nationals Park with a victory in the NL Wild Card game, until Washington loaded the bases against elite reliever Josh Hader in the eighth inning. Soto’s ensuing three-run single changed the Nationals’ destiny — even if, yes, he got some help from the outfielder muffing the play.

3. NLDS Game 5: Rendon, Soto homer back-to-back to tie Dodgers, Kendrick hits grand slam to win

The 106-win Los Angeles Dodgers made the NL Divisional Series a nailbiter, but the Nationals broke through against none other than Clayton Kershaw, the ace pitcher with a growing reputation as a playoff choker. First Rendon and Soto blasted back-to-back long balls to tie the game in the eighth and chase Kershaw, then Howie Kendrick came through in the 10th with a grand slam after Soto was intentionally walked.

2. World Series Game 7: Kendrick’s go-ahead 2-run homer

The beautiful thing about a home run that hits the foul pole is the anxiety-riddled wait as fans of both teams watch the ball sail in that direction, wondering if it will land fair or foul. Now in Game 7 of a World Series, multiply that feeling by a factor of, oh, 1 million? Kendrick’s heroics at the plate knew no bounds last October, and this home run put Washington up for good.

1. World Series Game 7: The clinching out

Daniel Hudson had only been a National for three months; Washington acquired him at the trade deadline as a bandage for a woeful bullpen. Yet he was just what the Nationals needed to deliver the biggest moment in franchise history. A slider on the seventh pitch of the final at-bat of the series was enough to strike out Michael Brantley and make Washington World Series champions, a moment fans will never, ever forget.