Bats come up big as Nats maintain wild card lead (updated)

MINNEAPOLIS - A night getaway game combined with a rain delay might have left the Nationals tired and dreading an overnight flight home in advance of tomorrow's series opener with the Braves. But if nothing else, it gave the Nats a rare opportunity to know exactly what was needed of them on this night, because every other contender for a berth in the National League wild card game had already finished playing.

And because the Cubs, Brewers, Mets and Phillies all won, the Nationals knew they had no choice but to beat the Twins and ensure nobody would gain any ground on them.

Which is precisely what they did, albeit with some awfully tense moments along the way. Thanks to another much-needed offensive outburst that included contributions from all of their big-name bats, a quality start from Patrick Corbin and then a big-time escape act from Fernando Rodney just when it looked like everything was going to fall apart, the Nats beat the Twins 12-6 to not only win tonight's series finale but to win the three-game series against the American League Central leaders altogether.

"It's gonna feel really good, if I get some sleep," manager Davey Martinez said with a laugh, his team unlikely to get home until perhaps 4 a.m. "The boys came out and played the last couple days. We're swinging the bats again, which is nice."

Adam Eaton, Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto each homered, and Asdrúbal Cabrera continued to deliver with runners in scoring position to lead a well-balanced offensive attack that blew the game open in the middle innings to ostensibly take pressure off the bullpen for the late innings.

Except that's not quite how it worked out. Handed a seven-run lead in the bottom of the eighth, Aaron Barrett turned the feel-good moment from his long-awaited return to the majors five nights ago into a near nightmare tonight. Barrett retired the first batter he faced, then let five straight Minnesota hitters reach safely, two via walk, one via two-run homer.

All of a sudden, the seven-run lead was down to four, and Rodney was being summoned to escape the jam. Except the 42-year-old made the jam even more harrowing when he walked Jason Castro to load the bases for Nelson Cruz, who could now tie the game with one swing.

"I've said it time and time again: I've known him for many years," Martinez said of Rodney. "And I trust him."

Give Rodney credit. The man can throw a nasty changeup when he really needs to, and he saved his best to strike out both Cruz and Jorge Polanco, stranding the bases loaded and keeping his team from suffering a complete meltdown.

"It doesn't surprise me at all," Cabrera said. "He's been in that situation a lot in his career."

And so the Nationals (81-64) won their second straight after dropping five of their previous six, in the process maintaining a 3 1/2-game lead over the Cubs and Brewers. Their magic number to clinch a berth in the Oct. 1 winner-take-all game is 14.

"We're still confident," Corbin said. "We're playing some good ballclubs. You're going to lose some of these games. To win a series against these guys is big. We know we've got a big series coming up at home. Our schedule is not that easy coming down the stretch. We know where we are in the standings, and we've just got to continue to come every day and try to win."

The notion of a getaway night game in advance of a home night game against the Braves was unappealing to the Nationals all along. Then it started raining this afternoon and the notion of this game being played at all sounded unappealing.

But the skies cleared in time for the game to begin at 7:30 p.m. local time, a modest 50-minute delay. And then the Nats went out and scored first, just as their manager keeps imploring them to do.

Rendon was the instigator, launching a solo homer in the top of the first, his 33rd of the season. The MVP candidate would later walk twice and add a two-run double, catching Freddie Freeman for the major league lead with 117 RBIs.

Two more runs in the top of the third via RBIs from Soto and Cabrera kept things rolling, but the real damage came in the fifth and sixth, at which point the Nationals took a close game and turned it lopsided.

Eaton lofted a leadoff homer just inside the right field foul pole, continuing his late-season surge, banged-up knee or not. Cabrera then sent a ball into the right field corner and raced all the way around to third base for a triple, not to mention his 29th RBI in 24 games as a National.

And when Rendon doubled in two runs and Soto drove in another two with his 56th career homer (tied with Tony Conigliaro for the second-most in major league history by a player before turning 21) the Nats had themselves a 10-3 lead that felt comfortable in that moment.

They did lose Matt Adams to what Martinez said was a tweak in his left "shoulder/triceps area," one inning after the slumping slugger struck out to fall into a 1-for-29 skid.

But the Nationals more than survived this game without Adams, even getting a two-run homer from Yan Gomes in the top of the ninth to provide some final cushion to ensure a much-needed win to keep a swath of wild card contenders at bay for another day.

"It's always a good feeling when you win the series," Cabrera said. "When we started the series in Atlanta, we lost the first three games there. But we've got the team to come back. We did it. And now we go home."