In critical October showdown, Nationals lose game of inches

CHICAGO - Oliver Pérez liked the pitch coming out of his hand, and he liked it coming off Anthony Rizzo's bat. It was a first-pitch fastball, in, and he managed to jam Rizzo and force the Cubs slugger to hit a little blooper toward shallow left-center field.

And then, as Pérez turned around and saw how much ground three of his teammates were trying to cover to get to the ball in time, well, that's when the Nationals reliever realized this might be trouble.

"I saw he didn't hit it that well," Pérez said. "Normally in those situations, the outfield is way back. So when I saw the people started yelling and I saw the ball drop ... sometimes you have to tip your hat. He had the opportunity, he made it."

Pérez was brought into that situation - bottom of the eighth, tie game, man on second, two outs - specifically because Dusty Baker trusted him to induce weak contact out of the left-handed Rizzo. Game 3 of the National League Division Series had come down to this one moment, and Pérez did exactly what he was supposed to do.

The ball left Rizzo's bat at a paltry 71 mph. It traveled only 228 feet. Statcast said that ball had only a 29 percent chance of falling for a hit.

Except not one of the Nationals' three defenders in the area - shortstop Trea Turner, center fielder Michael A. Taylor, left fielder Jayson Werth - could get there in time. Or, at least, take control of the situation, call off his teammates and make a diving attempt.

"I have no idea where they're playing," Turner said. "It's just kind of a free-for-all."

"From my vantage point, I thought maybe Trea had the best shot at it," Werth said. "And then when I looked at him, he just kind of turned around on it. But it's a tough one."

"It's one of those balls that's right in the middle, but that ball can't get down right there," Taylor said. "It's a tough play, because we're all charging in. Trea has great range. You don't want to dive on something he could be camped underneath. But that ball can't get down. As center fielder, I have to take over, take charge, and make a call on that."

The ball fell harmlessly onto the green grass, pinch-runner Leonys Martin came around to score without a throw and 42,445 fans at Wrigley Field made the old ballpark shake as they celebrated an RBI single that catapulted the Cubs to a 2-1 victory over the Nationals and a 2-1 lead in a best-of-five National League Division series that featured a host of batted balls that could have gone either way and so far have fallen more in Chicago's favor.

"That's just baseball, man," starting pitcher Max Scherzer said. "This game can be great, this game can be bad. You watch (Ryan Zimmerman's) home run (in Game 2), it made it out by a foot. Caught that break. Today, they hit a ball that was a foot out of everyone's reach. That's playoff baseball. That's what can happen."

Games 1 and 2 were nip and tuck, but Game 3 took things to a whole new level. In addition to Scherzer's brilliance - in his first appearance since tweaking his right hamstring nine days ago, he carried a no-hitter into the seventh - this game had both brilliant and terrible plays in the field, a horrible baserunning mistake, drives to the warning track that were hauled in and weak loopers that fell in to bring home precious runs.

The Nationals trudged away upset at the result, but they also couldn't help but think they were inches away from walking away joyous and in position to play to win the series Tuesday in Game 4.

Consider two balls hit early in the game, one by Anthony Rendon in the third, one by Matt Wieters in the fourth, each coming with two outs and at least one man on base. Rendon's drive to right-center might have brought home two runs, but Jason Heyward tracked it down at the warning track to end the inning. Wieters' drive to a similar spot was hauled in just short of the fence by Jon Jay, denying the Nationals another run.

"That's all you can do: Hit the ball hard like that. You can't control what happens after that," said Zimmerman, whose sixth-inning drive to that same area did fall in for the Nationals' lone RBI of the day. "Two really good swings and, unfortunately, two really good plays."

The Cubs didn't hit the ball nearly as hard as the Nationals did, yet they managed to place their hits in perfect spots, all of them in the seventh and eighth innings. Baker made the decision to pull Scherzer following a one-out double in the seventh, summoning lefty Sammy Solís and forcing Joe Maddon to pinch-hit Albert Almora Jr. for Kyle Schwarber.

"We thought Max had had enough, especially coming off the injury and, you know, Schwarber is a dangerous man," Baker said. "I probably couldn't live with myself if Schwarber had hit one out of the park on you, which he's dangerous to do that."

Solis threw a 3-2 changeup to Almora, up just a tick but on the outside corner of the strike zone. He wasn't dissatisfied with the pitch, only the result: a soft single to left that brought home Ben Zobrist and tied the game.

"I think I got him out in front," Solis said. "It wasn't great contact, but he hit it where we weren't. He just beat me that time."

Likewise, Pérez's pitch to Rizzo one inning later was a good one. He got what he wanted: weak contact. If only it had traveled a few feet farther toward one of his two outfielders. Or a few feet fewer to give his shortstop a better shot at it.

The Nationals might well have returned to Wrigley on Tuesday with a chance to advance to the franchise's first-ever National League Championship Series. Instead, they'll come back here facing an all-too-familiar scenario: one loss away from another first-round elimination.

"That's the way baseball is," Taylor said. "It's nice when you're on the other end of it, when those bloop hits are getting down, when you're making all the diving plays. But that wasn't the case today. I think we did great. Max did a great job. Guys were hitting the ball hard. They made a lot of good plays, shut down some innings ... and it's just the way it went."

Update: Game 4 on Tuesday will begin at 5:38 p.m. Eastern time, Major League Baseball has announced.