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For those of us living in DC area, this summer was often dominated by the amazing play of the Washington Nationals. Let me begin with the view of the Nationals on May 24, 2019 after they had lost four straight games to the New York Mets. Washington Post sportswriter Barry Svrugla wrote:
“The season is lost now, even before Memorial Day, and no veteran manager or fireballing reliever is going to alter that sorry state. The Washington Nationals arrived in New York in position to get the Mets’ manager fired. Instead, they depart Flushing with four odious performances that lead to the conclusion that their own manager is the one who should be removed — and with larger questions afoot.
Dave Martinez’s time as an effective leader of the Nats is over, if it ever existed. Nice guy, solid baseball man and all that. Did he make Adam Eaton miss first base in the first inning Thursday? No. Did he fail to score Juan Soto after a leadoff triple? No. Did he throw the ball into center field (like Yan Gomes) or fail to back it up (like Brian Dozier)? No.
But his charges did all of that, and they do similar things every single day. It’s maddening. So in watching Martinez for a season and change, you’re left with three conclusions: He hasn’t fixed those unforgivable “little things,” and they’re killing this club; strategy-wise, he’s too often chasing the game, trying to solve yesterday’s problems today; and worse, he can’t offset those deficiencies with his presence, which is far more part-of-the-wallpaper than let’s-go-to-war.
The scary part, though, at this point in this unprecedented Nats season — unprecedented because never has a Washington team with postseason expectations been so out of it so early — is that it doesn’t really matter who’s managing this bunch. Keep Davey or dump Davey. Meh. The problems here are more fundamental. The important decisions are about rosters in coming years, not the roster that’s imploding in front of us.”
That’s as low as it can go. At that point the Nationals were in last place in the NL East with a 19-31 record, with a 1.5% chance of making the World Series. From that point on they went 74-38, a .667 winning percentage, tied for the best in baseball. Then they won the wild card game over Milwaukee, beat the best team in the National League, the Los Angeles Dodgers by winning three out of five, swept the St. Louis Cardinals, and then beat the “best” team in baseball, the Houston Astros.
During this astounding post-season run, they faced elimination five times, trailed in every one of these elimination games, and then came back to win. Along the way they beat some of the best pitchers in baseball –Josh Hader, Clayton Kershaw, Jack Flaherty, Derrick Cole, and Justin Verlander (twice). No one who followed the Nationals this year could deny their amazing grit and their sheer sang-froid. Nothing daunted them. They scored an amazing number of runs with two outs. Anthony Rendon’s at-bats in eliminations games from the seventh inning on were unprecedented –three HRs, three doubles and a walk, all of which played pivotal roles in turning the games around.
Why was this team so special? The Nats had great players; their hitting was second in the league by most measures and their starting pitching was second to none. Their fielding was only average and their bull pen was historically bad for most of the season. But what led to the determination, the grit, the perseverance, the grace under pressure? We might get a hint by turning to the literature on successful teams.
According to a Human Resources web-site, “A high-performance work team” refers to a group of goal-focused individuals with specialized expertise and complementary skills who collaborate, innovate and produce consistently superior results. The group relentlessly pursues performance excellence through shared goals, shared leadership, collaboration, open communication, clear role expectations and group operating rules, early conflict resolution, and a strong sense of accountability and trust among its members.” Later in the article the author says “High-performance teams generally have more fun at work than low-achieving teams or individuals.”
I think having fun was at the center of the Nats success. The Nationals were the oldest team in major league baseball; their average age is 31.1 years with five players over 35 and another nine in their thirties. Like most baseball teams they have a large number of international players, particularly from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Latin players are less inhibited than Anglos and they add a particular sense of èlan; their sense of playfulness has permeated this team.
Here are the ways the Nationals had fun.
Baby Shark. Of particular note is Gerardo Parra, whose best playing days were behind him when he joined the Nationals on May 9. As told by Penn Live “On May 11 he beat the Dodgers with a grand-slam HR, his first Nationals hit. But what endeared Parra to Nationals fans was his walk-up song. On June 19 Parra was mired in an 0-22 slump. He decided a new walk-up song might change his luck. “I think God send to me,” Parra said recently of choosing “Baby Shark,” a nod to his 2-year-old daughter, Aaliyah, instead of another Reggaeton or hip-hop song like he has used throughout most of his 11-year major league career.”
“Baby Shark” was not an immediate success. There couldn’t have been more than 5,000 people in the stands when Parra stepped to the plate to lead off the second inning that day. Neither the Nationals’ TV nor radio broadcasts mentioned the song, which preceded a routine groundout to first base. “Baby Shark” might have been a forgotten, one-day experiment had Parra not doubled in his next at-bat and homered later in the game, a 6-2 Nationals win, to break out of his slump.
“My girl loves that song,” Parra told reporters afterward. ” . . . She sings it a lot.” Parra earned a rare start at home four days later, and this time, MASN’s cameras showed pockets of fans clapping along to the song every time he came to bat. The Nationals were six games over .500 and in sole possession of the first NL wild-card spot when they returned from a 10-day road trip after the all-star break to open a series against the Rockies on July 23. As “Baby Shark” began to play after Parra was announced as a pinch hitter in the seventh inning that night, an animated video on the center field scoreboard depicted three images of Parra clapping along in uniform, his head edited to be disproportionately larger than the rest of his body.
Even the National Symphony was into it.
The Racers. There were other rituals as well: Kendrick and Eaton driving dual racing cars each time one of them hit a home run;
the Dugout dances that followed every home run;
The Rose colored sunglasses. Parra and Sanchez wearing orange or rose-tinted sunglasses day and night.
The Group Hugs. Even the most reserved Nationals players –Anthony Rendon and Steven Strasburg joined in.
This was a loose team that was having fun and seemed to genuinely like each other. Did this make the difference that allowed the Washington Nationals to become the World Champions? We’ll never know for sure but believing that fun counts is something worth hanging onto.
Way to stay in the fight Nats. I thoroughly enjoyed this team. Your happiness is contagious.