The Washington Nationals demonstrated better batting and pitching to beat defending World Series champions the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 Sunday in the opening game of their playoff series.
The Nationals' rookies played like experienced veterans. They managed with just four players with postseason experience and still were able to take the game. On the other hand, the Cardinals could not perform as per expectations and lost a very important game.
The Associated Press quoted Ian Desmond, the Nationals' shortstop as saying: "Not many people have probably watched too many Nationals games, but we have a great starting rotation and a great bullpen.
"They keep us in the ballgame and some timely hits from this kid, and the rest of the guys coming off the bench, that's really been the formula."
In Sunday's game, the Nationals overcame a wild start by Gio Gonzalez and limited St. Louis to just three hits.
"All the credit in the world goes to the bullpen," Gonzalez said. "I've been saying it all year. The reason why we've been so successful is these guys come in and shut it down."
Ryan Mattheus, the rookie reliever, bailed out the Nationals with just two pitches in the seventh with the Cardinals ahead 2-1 while another rookie, Moore, put them in a leading position soon after that.
Washington, the NL East champions, led the majors with 98 wins this season, bringing postseason baseball for the first time since 1933 to Washington. The Nationals would be eyeing a 2-0 lead in the game Monday with Jordan Zimmermann against Jamie Arcia.
Adam Wainwright, the St. Louis starter said: "This team is not hanging our heads. We can come back and win this easily."
St. Louis made it to the best-of-five division series after defeating Atlanta in the wild-card matchup Friday. However, they failed to capitalize on Gonzalez's career high-tying seven walks wasting a 10-strikeout game by Wainwright much to the frustration of their towel-waving fans.
Ryan Mattheus, the Nationals, reliever said: "It was a big moment. It gave us life. The guys said, 'Hey, we can win this ballgame'."
"Randy (coach) just told me, 'Let's get three outs before anyone touches home plate'," said Mattheus. "It didn't make any difference if it was three line drives or three strikeouts. We just needed three outs."
Moore the 25-year old rookie was equally impressive in Sunday's game. He has only played 75 major league games. However, he knew it would be his time once Rzepczynski arrived.
"It's happened before," he said. "A lot of people don't want to face Tracy, because he's so good off the bench."
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