Long, rainy day and night ends with doubleheader sweep

It began with a rain delay. It ended after another rain delay. In between, the Nationals played two baseball games with the Cubs, saw Max Scherzer throw a complete game, inducted Jayson Werth into their Ring of Honor, saw Bryce Harper launch a go-ahead home run off the bullpen cart, saw Sean Doolittle become the first pitcher ever to enter Nationals Park via said bullpen cart and saw Greg Holland record the save at 1:42 a.m. in front of perhaps 200 fans.

Oh yeah, the Nationals also swept a doubleheader.

On perhaps the longest day in the ballpark's 11-year history, the home team at least walked away with two wins over the Cubs, riding Scherzer's complete game to a 10-3 rout in the opener and then Harper's late homer to a 6-5 victory in a nightcap that wasn't completed until everyone waited through a 1-hour, 29-minute delay in the middle of the eighth.

It was an eventful, bizarre but ultimately satisfying day (and night) for the Nationals, who experienced the full gamut of emotions over the course of 13-plus hours at the park.

"I'm proud of the boys, all of them," manager Davey Martinez said. "They played through some awful weather, and they battled for two games. And then through the wee hours of the morning. I'm really proud of all of them."

In the end, they pulled off an impressive rally late. Down 4-1 in the sixth, they scored twice. Down 5-3 in the seventh, they scored three times, with Harper's two-run homer to center giving them the lead for the first time.

That blast off lefty Justin Wilson caromed off the previously unused bullpen cart parked just behind the center field fence. Thankfully, the cart remained functional afterward, because it was shortly thereafter when Doolittle emerged from the right field bullpen for the first time in two months and hopped into the passenger's seat to hitch a ride around the warning track before walking the final steps to the mound for his return from a left foot injury.

"That was awesome," Doolittle said. "I had a lot of fun. It was a really smooth ride. It was great."

Martinez surprisingly made the move to his closer with one out in the eighth, knowing there was rain on the way and this was the key moment in the game. And it worked. Doolittle struck out Daniel Murphy on three pitches, making his former teammate look silly flailing at an 0-2 fastball at his eyelids. Then he got Victor Caratini to fly out to left, and as he stepped off the mound, the quirky reliever held his arms out and looked up at the rain a la Andy Dufresne.

Moments later, crew chief Tim Timmons called for the grounds crew to bring the tarp out, and this game officially went into yet another rain delay at 12:02 a.m. It finally resumed at 1:29 a.m., with the Nationals batting in the bottom of the eighth and Holland warming in the bullpen to pitch the top of the ninth.

Needing to record three outs before surrendering a run, Holland did it. He plunked Willson Contreras with his very first pitch, but got Ian Happ to fly out to center, then got Ben Zobrist to ground into a game-ending double play.

"I think it's just one of those things you get used to if you play long enough," Holland said of his early-morning assignment. "I've only had maybe one or two that ended that late, but I'm used to extra innings and rain delays and stuff at this point. I always assume we're going to finish the game, even if it looks bad. I still try to stay locked in."

Only a handful of the originally announced sellout crowd of 41,346 remained to see the end. Many more were present earlier when Scherzer went the distance in the opener, shutting the Cubs down during a 10-3 win. That same crowd could not, however, have expected the guy starting the nightcap to make a run at history, albeit a brief one.

Jefry Rodriguez faced 10 batters through the first three innings, and he retired nine of them. The only one to successfully reach base? Anthony Rizzo, who did so when he was hit by a pitch.

During one stretch spanning the first, second and third innings, Rodriguez struck out five Cubs in a row, showing off a fastball that reached 98 mph. It was an impressive performance from the rookie right-hander, but it did not last.

Rodriguez got the start only because Joe Ross was burned up during Friday night's rainout. Rodriguez, who had already thrown 141 combined innings between the minors and majors this season, was supposed to move to the bullpen so the Nationals could restrict his workload the rest of the way.

In the end, Rodriguez threw 83 pitches, but a huge chunk of those came in the top of the fourth, when he lost the no-hitter and the shutout in one fell swoop. After loading the bases on two walks and a Ryan Zimmerman error (that was later changed to a double), Rodriguez served up a grand slam to Caratini.

Just like that, the Cubs led 4-0 and the Nationals had surrendered their ninth grand slam of the season, fourth in the last 11 days.

They fought back, though, just as they always seem to do, thanks in large part to an unlikely source of power: Adrian Sanchez.

The inexperienced infielder hit the ball well earlier in the day in the opener, and he drove another ball to the warning track in his first at-bat tonight. But in the bottom of the fourth, he finally got one to fall, launching a triple off the wall in left-center to bring home Harper with the Nats' first run.

That was the first hit off Cole Hamels in the game, but it wasn't the last. Anthony Rendon led off the sixth with a home run to left-center, trimming the deficit to 4-2. Then, after a pair of walks, Sanchez ripped a double down the right field line to drive home his second run of the evening and trim the deficit to 4-3.

The Cubs would tack on against the Nationals bullpen, with Albert Almora Jr. drilling an RBI double off Wander Suero in the top of the seventh to extend the lead to 5-3. But the Nationals still had something left in the tank at the end of a very long day at the ballpark.

"I think this was an awesome day for us," Doolittle said. "Having to wait around for an extra two hours last night and come in today with a lot of rain in the forecast. Coming from behind in the second game, that says a lot about our team. I'm proud of the way we put together such a complete second game with all the weather that we had to deal with and the weather and stuff. Guys still have energy. It's 2 o'clock in the morning, and we've still got guys yelling at the TV about something. I think it says a lot about our group."