"It had to be this way": Remarkable season comes down to Game 7

HOUSTON - Sean Doolittle was holding court with a large group of reporters long after Game 6 had ended Tuesday night. There were some familiar faces in attendance, but most of those interviewing the veteran reliever don't regularly cover the Nationals and perhaps are just now starting to get a real sense of what this 2019 campaign has been like.

Was Doolittle surprised, someone asked, that the World Series was now going to a decisive Game 7? He was not.

"For the people that followed the team for the whole season: It had to be this way," the left-hander said. "It was going to be this way. It just feels like the most 2019 Nats thing for this to come down to Game 7 in the World Series."

Of course it does. How else could this remarkable baseball season possibly end? The Nationals weren't going to sweep the Astros. But neither were they going to just roll over and lose four in a row after taking Games 1 and 2 on the road.

This is the team that started 19-31. This is the team that had to play .661 ball the rest of the way to reach the postseason. This is the team that had to win four elimination games in the last month, in each case coming from behind to win.

This is exactly how the Nationals were going to set the stage for the final game of the season.

"We've had confidence the whole time, no matter the situation," Trea Turner said. "Everybody was hating on us and asking all sorts of questions the last three days, getting swept out of our own park. And we figured out a way to do it tonight. I think what matters is how we feel and how we think of each other and how we approach the game tomorrow. And we have all the confidence in the world."

They have that confidence not only because they've established their ability to win must-win games, but because of the guy who will take the mound tonight and attempt to lift this franchise to a place it has never been.

It's not just Game 7. It's Max Scherzer starting Game 7. Three days after he couldn't start Game 5 due to an ailing neck that didn't even allow him to get up out of bed and get dressed without assistance.

Now, thanks to the wondrous (if sometimes dangerous) powers of cortisone shots, Scherzer is going to start the most important game of his life and try to secure Washington's first World Series title since 1924.

"It's what you live for," Scherzer said. "For me, I'm in pregame routine right now. That's just where I'm at mentally. Here we go."

What can the Nationals reasonably expect from Scherzer? Who knows. But they'll have plenty of backup options ready to go in case things don't go according to plan. Aníbal Sánchez is on full rest. Patrick Corbin is on three days' rest. Stephen Strasburg is ... well, could he actually come back and pitch an inning in relief one night after throwing 104 pitches in 8 1/3 innings?

"They've asked me that a few times," Strasburg said. "I emptied the tank tonight. It's trusting everybody next to you. It's going to take all 25 of us."

OK, so he's probably thrown his last pitch of 2019. But plenty of others have not, particularly Scherzer, who insists he'll need no leash to hold him back tonight.

"It's Game 7," he said. "Let's go."

The Astros, of course, can deploy their own all-hands-on-deck strategy. Zack Greinke will start - making this the first World Series Game 7 matchup between former Cy Young Award winners - but Gerrit Cole and Jose Urquidy are both available out of the bullpen. Like Strasburg, Game 6 starter Justin Verlander probably isn't going to take the mound again. But you never say never when it comes to Game 7.

This is the 40th time the best-of-seven World Series has gone the distance, and if you think you know in advance what's going to happen you're lying. The home team has won 18 of the previous 39 games, with the road team winning 21 times.

The home team, though, has won nine of the last 12 Game 7s, dating to 1982. Except the visiting team has won the last three Game 7s: the Giants in Kansas City in 2014, the Cubs in Cleveland in 2016 and these Astros in Los Angeles in 2017.

And if the Nationals pull this off? They'll merely become the first team in World Series history to win four road games.

"It's weird, really," manager Davey Martinez said. "I mean, we can't explain it."

Why try to explain anything about the 2019 Nationals to anybody who hasn't watched them on a regular basis. This team has often defied logic and reason. So why would that suddenly change now?

The season will end tonight, one way or the other. Six weeks of spring training, followed by six months of regular season baseball, followed by one month of postseason baseball has brought the Nationals to this most remarkable position.

They've insisted all along they're just trying to go 1-0 every day. One more 1-0 and they'll be hoisting a trophy in Houston late tonight and forever altering the course of baseball history in Washington.

"Tomorrow night is what you play for," Ryan Zimmerman said. "It's going to be a lot of fun."