By Garrett Connor
The 2019 Major League Baseball season has come to a close. The Washington Nationals “finished the fight” and beat the Houston Astros in game seven of the World Series. This year’s World Series was the first time that the opposing team won every game of the series. This came as a shock since teams were playing for home-field advantage the whole year. This year, it seemed like it was more of a home-field disadvantage. The Washington Nationals almost didn’t make it out of the Wild Card game against the Milwaukee Brewers. Nationals outfielder, Juan Soto, had a bases-clearing single in the bottom of the eighth inning of the winner-takes-all game that sent them to the National League Division Series (NLDS). In the NLDS, they faced the Los Angeles Dodgers and fought back and won two elimination games to move on to the National League Championship Series (NLCS). They ended up sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS and moved on to the World Series. With the help of starting pitcher, Gerrit Cole, the Houston Astros beat the Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Yankees to move on to the World Series. Cole went 3-0 while only giving up one run and striking out 32 over 22 innings pitched. He was considered a freak through the first two series. Going into the series, no one was giving the Nationals a chance to win. They had to go through a team with 107 wins and six all-star players, who both led the MLB. The Nationals had their own weapons, though, to help beat the Astros and capture their first World Series title. They rode their two horses of arms in Steven Strasburg and Max Scherzer. The World Series’ MVP, Steven Strasburg, posted a 5-0 record only giving up nine runs over 36 innings. He struck out 47 while walking only four batters. Scherzer went 3-0 while giving up eight runs over 30 innings. These two were the backbone of the team, both winning elimination games, and World Series games six and seven. With all of this pitching, the Nationals outscored their opponents 19-0 after the seventh inning of their elimination games. They caught fire at the right time and turned in an unpredictable year and World Series.
