Going from one of the worst starts in baseball to winning the 2019 World Series? That’s how the Washington Nationals' season went. On May 23, the Nationals overall record was 19–31, which was the fourth-worst record in baseball. At that time in the season, they were already 12 games under .500, 10 games behind in the National League East competition, and they had the worst bullpen in the major league. They decided that the only two choices they had were to buy a few players or sell some players.
Just two weeks before the trade deadline, the Nationals were starting to figure everything out. Since their horrific start to the season and being swept by the New York Mets, they had gone 31–13, the best record in baseball in that span. The run they went on put them back on track to make it to the playoffs. It takes lots of hard work to go from one of the worst records in baseball to getting back into playoff position. The Nationals were on pace to lose 100 games at the beginning of the season.
Throughout the season, the team had many injuries to star players, and some of the other star players just weren't playing as well as they could. The Nationals also didn’t have the best bullpen at the time. But every athlete has at least one off-day during the season. As the season wore on, the better the team played as a whole.
No one expected the Nationals to jump very far in season rankings, allowing them to play baseball in October. They just wanted to prove everyone wrong from the start of the season. They went into the playoffs as one of the two wildcard teams in the National League.
Starting off the postseason, the Nationals played the Milwaukee Brewers. The Nationals survived that game, with a wild comeback to win the wildcard game. Further, into the postseason they go. Next, they played in the National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Nationals won the series, 3-2 games. After they won, they went on to play the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series. The Nationals swept the red-hot Cardinals to go on to the World Series. They went on to play the Houston Astros in the best-of-seven World Series. Neither the Nationals nor Astros won a game at home. The opposing team won the home game every time. The series was tied, so they went on to play Game 7. The Nationals finally broke out in scoring, and they then went on to win the World Series title-the first in franchise history.
The Nationals played five elimination games and trailed every one of them, but they never gave up, and they won the elimination games to stay alive in the postseason. Everyone doubted them because of the way they started the season. But they never doubted themselves. They always stuck together and did what they knew they could do. They believed in each other and that’s all they needed. They had a roller coaster of a season, but they ended up World Series Champions.
“I believe in these guys,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. “They believe in each other. And the biggest thing for us is, never quit. We know that. We were 19-31. We didn’t quit then. We weren’t gonna quit now.”