Roadkill

I heard a few people say that the 2019 World Series, which was won last night in improbable fashion by the Washington Nationals, was a classic. Certainly there were elements of drama, such as in the seventh inning in game seven, when Howie Kendrick hit one off the foul pole to put the Nats in the lead for the good, or in the sixth inning in game six, when a controversial call at first base was erased by an Anthony Rendon home run. But it was not a great series, it was a weird one.

To start with, it was the first series in which the road team won all games. This is not only true for baseball, but for all North American sports. When Washington won game six, it was the first time the road team won the first six games, and that includes the NBA and the NHL. That's more that 1,400 seven game series, which makes this series odd if anything else.

The Nationals jumped on two of the best pitchers in baseball, Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander, to win the first two games of the series in Houston, and had now won eight straight games, and twenty of twenty-two, and looked good heading home. But the Astros turned things around, shutting them down in Washington, winning three games rather easily, allowing the Nationals only three runs in three games. It looked as if the favorites had righted the ship, heading home needing only to win one game.

Game six had Verlander on the mound, who had an early lead, but allowed back-to-back jacks by Rendon and Juan Soto. Verlander is now the first pitcher to start seven World Series games without a win, going 0-6 in his career. Meanwhile Steven Strasbourg, the Nats ace, was cruising, putting the Astros hitters to sleep.

In game seven, the Astros again had a lead. Max Scherzer, who could not start game five due to back spasms, left down 2-0, but Rendon again homered, and the Astros bullpen again shit the bed, as Will Harris gave up that Kendrick home run, and the Nationals tacked on insurance runs and won 6-2. Strasbourg was named series MVP.

Not only was this series a direct refutation of home-field advantage, but it was full of umpiring controversy. Fox, which broadcasts the games, has a square on the screen indicating the strike zone, so the viewers at home can instantly judge if an umpire blew a strike call. More than one umpire was heated over the coals for blowing pitch calls, which might be unfair as the zone on the screen may not be accurately representing the strike zone. But the call at first in game six, in which Trea Turner was called out for interference, made the umps look bad. It was a judgment call, and therefore could not be reviewed or protested. But the crew spent over four minutes discussing it, leaving the Astros pitcher cooling his heels on the mound. Rendon's home run made the whole thing moot, but it was a bad display for the men in blue.

The Nationals are one of those teams that come along and steals a championship. I can think of the Florida Marlins who did it twice, with two entirely different squads, or the Cincinnati Reds of 1990, who somehow swept the Oakland A's. Going way back there were the St. Louis Browns on 1944, who won with a meager squad in the days when many of the best big leaguers were in the military. These teams usually don't come back, and Washington needs to sign both Strasbourg and Rendon to have any hope of repeating. But this is the twentieth straight Series in which there is no repeat winner, the longest stretch in baseball history. I would expect the Astros have a better chance of being back next year than the Nationals.

But this is the first championship for the franchise, which began as the Montreal Expos fifty years ago, and the first for the city of Washington since 1924, so they are certainly entitled to their moment. I am also very pleased with the fans, who in game five, when our fearless leader was shown on the scoreboard, mercilessly booed him, and chanted "Lock him up!" It was a giddy expression of democracy, to which some wrung their hands, calling it disrespectful. You can not show disrespect to a man who shows no respect to others, just a few days before calling Republicans who were against him "human scum." These fans know a crook when they see one. They live in Washington, after all.