It might be easier to tell this story in reverse.
1. There is no rowdy chorus of boos, hisses and jeers. The St. Louis Cardinals are swarming the infield, jumping up and down and embracing each other, yet none of it is audible. Up in the stands plenty of people mutter obscenities, but they barely register. It’s as though someone hit a giant mute button on Nationals Park.
The Cardinals are celebrating, the Nationals are receding into their clubhouse and 46,000 red-clad fans have nothing to say. On the concourse exiting the stadium, they exhale through tight-lipped grimaces. In the long queue for the next Green Line train, they shuffle at the turnstile, wondering what just happened.
Later, the statisticians will say that the Cardinals have just completed the biggest come-from-behind win in an elimination game in Major League Baseball history. Inside the Nationals’ clubhouse, Drew Storen is sitting in a chair facing away from locker, sitting quietly as teammates try to console him. “I just let these guys down,” he’ll tell reporters eventually.
2. Carlos Beltrán, the Cardinals’ $13 million outfielder, lashes a double off Storen to open the top of the ninth inning. The Nationals are up 7-5, the most recent run having come in the previous frame on an insurance hit by Kurt Suzuki. Matt Holliday grounds out, pushing Beltrán to third. Allen Craig strikes out. All that stands between the Nationals and the National League Championship Series is one out.
Storen works St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina to a two-ball-two-strike count. And then it starts. Two more balls, and Molina walks. Next up, David Freese gets another walk. Where the Nationals had been one strike from victory, they now faced a bases-loaded situation with David Descalso up. Descalso has been giving the home team trouble all week, and this at-bat is no different. His single is too errant for Ian Desmond to reach in time; two runs score, and the game is tied. Pete Kozma’s follow-up single sends two more runners home, and suddenly its 9-7. Storen finally ends the ordeal by striking out Jason Motte, the Cardinals reliever, who is only batting because the St. Louis bench is depleted.
In the bottom of the ninth, Motte’s pitches don’t fall below 97 miles per hour. Jayson Werth, Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman all fall easily, and the horror becomes real.
3. Bottom of the eighth inning. The Cardinals, once down 6-0, have clawed their back to within one run of tying the game. Adam LaRoche leads off with a single. Seconds later, Scandinavian synth-pop blares from the public-address system. The crowd bursts into a-Ha’s “Take On Me,” for Michael Morse’s late-inning walk to the plate. Morse has already been in Beast Mode once tonight, belting a two-run home run in the third inning that capped the Nationals’ initial offensive outburst. Morten Harket’s voice cuts out after a few bars, but the crowd keeps singing. By the time the fans are attempting the the falsetto “in a day or two,” Morse is on first base having hit a single of his own. Kurt Suzuki comes up a few batters later and ropes another hit that scores Ian Desmond. Surely, this is the insurance run.
4. The temperature has dropped to the low 50s, maybe even the high 40s, and a brisk mid-autumn wind is gusting across the Anacostia River. Spectators pull their gloves on and pull their hooded sweatshirts tight. On the field, the Cardinals are inching their way back into this game. Still, Washington remains optimistic. Nine outs to go. Edwin Jackson, who started the disastrous Game 3 of this National League Division Series, is on in relief. Would his former team batter him as ferociously as it did two days earlier? Not quite, but St. Louis still manufactures a run. Empty beer bottles blow off tabletops under the scoreboard and skitter across the mezzanine floor. It’s 6-4 when the inning ends, and triumph is getting closer.
5. Gio Gonzalez leaves after five innings, having allowed three runs on five hits and four walks. Still, he seemed more assured than his rocky start in Game 1 last Sunday. Entrusting a 6-3 lead to Craig Stammen and Sean Burnett, the Nationals tonight are evading those persnickety pundits’ questions about Stephen Strasburg’s absence. He’s shut down, it was the club’s decision and the Nationals are closing in on a big win.
6. Middle of the fourth inning. The Presidents’ Race begins. Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln gang up on Roosevelt at the gun, but tonight the grounds crew is playing the spoiler. A team of red-shirted greenskeepers blitz George, T.J. and Honest Abe, giving the formerly eternal loser enough time to recover and win the race for the fourth time in as many games. Teddy always winning is becoming the Nationals’ most inane PR stunt since Teddy always losing.
7. The Nationals’ bats are cracking tonight. Already up 3-0 going into their side of the third inning, the home team is making the home crowd feel real good. Harper leads off, still buzzing from an RBI triple in the first inning. He smashes a leadoff home run that arcs deep into right-center field. The kid is the first teenager to hit a postseason home run since Andruw Jones did it for Atlanta in 1996. The enthusiasm continues moments later as Zimmerman doubles. LaRoche strikes out again, but Morse unleashes a shot of his own.
8. NBC News’ David Gregory approaches a microphone in front of his field-level box seat and screams, in a voice unlike any he would ever affect on Meet the Press, “PLAY BALL!” And the Nationals get to it straight away. Beltrán’s single aside, Gonzalez works through the top of the Cardinals’ lineup with efficiency.
The Nationals’ batters are just as eager to start. Werth, whom the crowd is still fêting for his walk-off home run the night before, opens with a whip-like double to left field. Harper follows with a triple, bringing home Game 4’s scraggly hero for Game 5’s first run. Zimmerman continues the cycle with a soaring home run. Only a few minutes into the deciding game, and the Nationals are performing a hit parade on the reigning World Series champions. But Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright finds his stuff on the next three batter—LaRoche, Morse and Desmond—all of who strike out. The first inning is a joy, and an omen.
9. A few days ago, a well-paid sports analyst who used to work for this city’s paper of record said that D.C. is unbefitting of the high drama that accompanies events like postseason baseball. On Friday evening, 45,966 people—a record for Nationals Park—clad in red shirts and curly w’s come prepared to prove that analyst’s assertion wrong. They will succeed, but they will have to take the road through Baseball Hell. Even if this is to be the end of what could have been the dream season, no single loss, however devastating, can undo what was forged this year. There will be more baseball in 2013, and whatever shape the Nationals arrive in, they will be hungry. And Washington’s “Natitude”—or whatever you want to call it—will have teeth.
