Nationals manager 'kicks' himself, faces must-win game
SAN FRANCISCO -- To hear Washington Nationals manager Matt Williams tell it, the only damage done by his team's historic 18-inning Division Series loss to San Francisco Saturday is to his own backside.
Drew Storen is still his closer. The Nationals' season continues – barely. Williams wouldn't change his fateful decision to remove starting pitcher Jordan Zimmermann with two outs in the ninth. But the first-year manager still spent the cross-country flight punishing himself.
"I kicked myself on that," Williams says. "Any time you make a decision on something and it doesn't work, you kick ytoourself. However, you have to put your guys in position to do their jobs. So, I don't have a problem with it."
The problem Williams and the Nationals have is a 2-0 deficit to the Giants in the best-of-five series. It's a Giants team showing again it's poised, prepared and remarkably persevering in the postseason.
The Giants have won 10 consecutive postseason games, stretching to their seven-game victory in the 2012 National League Championship Series.
"You talk about the Giants and you say they are battle-tested guys," Williams says "You don't get battle-tested unless you get into battle."
Williams wants that battle but Giants manager Bruce Bochy – with his 20 years of experience and two World Series victories – is winning it.
"He knows his guys, knows what they can and can't do, puts them in position to succeed," Williams says, echoing what he was attempting to do at that crucial Game 2 moment.
"And they respond," Williams says of the Giants.
Whether it's managers' moves, players' performances or a combination, Bochy has one more trump card to play.
Madison Bumgarner is the Game 3 starting pitcher Monday night against Washington's Doug Fister.
Bumgarner is coming off his wild-card game shutout of Pittsburgh and a team-leading 18 victories and 219 strikeouts in 217 innings this season.
"And," Williams notes, "he rakes."
Rakes, as in hits - .258 with four homers this year for Bumgarner. And these teams can use all the offensive help they can get with just eight total runs in 27 innings.
Only once in those postseason record-tying 18 innings Saturday did either team gets hits from consecutive batters.
But, oh, what a time.
Right after Williams confidently strode to the mound to do exactly as he had planned – not let Zimmermann pitch to Buster Posey a fourth time in the game. Never mind San Francisco had just three hits and none since the third inning.
When Zimmermann walked Joe Panik with two outs in the ninth and leading 1-0, Posey was up again.
The Giants catcher already has a single and, two innings earlier, Williams recalls, "Hit a first-pitch slider and lined it to third base that Anthony (Rendon) made a great play on. All of those things go into the decision.
"We gave Jordan the opportunity to go out there and complete the game," Williams says. "But knowing that if he gets in trouble, we have our closer ready. That's standard practice."
How standard this entire situation really is remains the crux of the matter.
Storen has been the Nationals closer since early September, when Rafael Soriano's continuing struggles compelled Williams to make the switch. It's not that Storen hasn't done the job before – he had 43 saves in 2011.
And, as Williams has repeated since Game 2 ended early Sunday morning, "Drew's been perfect up until …"
Until one misplaced pitch – which is another intriguing part of the Nationals' dilemma, both short-term and beyond.
Posey singled, and then Pablo Sandoval's game tying double came on a "ball in the middle of the plate," Williams said, "up too much. He just missed location on a pitch. That happens."
Certainly true. Even Mariano Rivera had five blown saves in the postseason, albeit in 47 opportunities.
But Storen's one other previous playoff blown save was the one that ended the Nationals 2012 season, the other time they carried the expectations of the team with best regular-season record.
Storen insisted after Saturday's game that demons of 2012 weren't lurking when he took the mound nor when Posey's hit heightened the tension.
And there's no way to be certain if there's any connection to Storen's one bad pitch, as Williams calls it, coming right after Posey's single added anxiety to the sellout crowd in Washington.
It all happened so quickly. Posey hit the first pitch Storen threw. Sandoval fouled off one sinker, stung the Nats with the next one.
The Nationals had 10 more chances to score and win. They didn't.
With all the focus on pitching decisions, this still is a team barely getting a hit every other inning, batting .160 without having seen San Francisco's best pitcher yet.
"I think it's a little bit of impatience," Williams says of his hitters. "We have swung at some pitches down and out of the strike zone, which has results in some early outs and not being able to string things together. We have got to do a better job being a little more patient."
There isn't much time for that now.
Backed into a spot where every decision is magnified, says Williams, "We don't have a choice."
GALLERY: NLDS - GIANTS vs. NATIONALS
