Matt Williams: Facing elimination, "all hands are on deck"

SAN FRANCISCO - In the their historic playoff game Saturday - that spilled into Sunday - the Nationals emptied their bullpen. Tanner Roark, a starter through the season, was the last man up and surrendered a solo shot to Brandon Belt that led to a 2-1 Giants win in 18 innings.

A tired team then flew to San Francisco early Sunday morning to prepare for a must-win Game 3. So how are they feeling today?

"We had a good workout yesterday," manager Matt Williams said. "Everyone's ready."

Everyone includes Craig Stammen, who pitched three scoreless innings of one-hit ball in the marathon game and an inning Friday night, taking the loss.

"Everybody's good with the day off. Tanner was 30 pitches, Craig certainly is available with the day off," Williams said. "Everybody's ready and available for today's game."

While the teams are certainly not hoping for another 18-inning contest, Williams may have to pull out all of the tricks in this win-or-go-home game. Depending on how the game and starter Doug Fister look, the Nats could potentially play matchups earlier in the contest than they would during the regular season.

"I think it depends on the game," Williams said, "and how it starts and where we're at and what's need to potentially ... if Doug's short, then that means we're behind, right?

"So if that situation presents itself, then we have to make decisions to try to stem the tide, get back in it, look at matchups for the next two, three innings. ...So again, all hands are on deck, and everybody's available depending on what the game presents. Hopefully it doesn't. Hopefully it's Doug for eight and go from there."

Could those matchups involve the Game 1 starter, right-hander Stephen Strasburg?

"Potentially," Williams said. "That's the last case, the emergency, hopefully not another 18-inning affair. But, you know, yeah, of course he's available. It would be an extreme emergency situation if we got to that point."