The author of maybe the single most uplifting game in Nationals history is a Nat no more. The fellow with one blue and one brown eye who forced his way past a neck issue to keep the Nationals in line to win their first World Series has gone west.
That was hours after the Cubs finally said goodbye to the man who snapped into his mitt the final out of their first World Series win since the premieres of cellophane, the Geiger counter, and the Model T Ford.
Trade deadlines don't often feature two or more signatures of two off-the-charts World Series champions changing addresses and wardrobes. When they're men identified that tightly with their teams, even those with no rooting skin in their games can't help thinking that the world just got knocked more out of order than it seemed going in.
This year's Nats don't have a staggering rise from the dead in them just yet, if at all. This year's Cubs were bent on selling while the selling was good, with their National League Central chances this year anything but. "Go Cubs Go," that rollicking anthem of the 2016 conquerors, now has another meaning.
Max Scherzer goes west for a better chance at a postseason return with the Dodgers. That was just moments, seemingly, after the entire world thought the splash-happy Padres had him all but loaded on the plane west. Ouch.
Anthony Rizzo goes east in a Yankee hope that a couple of heretofore missing left-handed bats — they'd landed all-or-nothing portside slugger Joey Gallo from the Rangers just prior — might turn their season from somewhat lost to yet another shot at the Promised Land.
The Nats hope the package of prospects Scherzer and shortstop Trea Turner brought back from Los Angeles mean this season proves a hiccup on their way back to the races to come. The Cubs hope the pair Rizzo brought back from the Bronx means likewise, especially depending on what they brought back sending Rizzo's partner in 2016 World Series crime, third baseman Kris Bryant, to the NL West-surprise Giants.
But ending eras is never pleasant. And these two deals ended a pair of eras that'll live as long as Washington and Chicago live. The Rizz speared Bryant's herky-jerky on-the-move throw over to secure the Cubs' World Series winner. Max the Knife's empty-tank performance of sheer will kept the Nats alive enough to pull just enough lingering rabbits out of their hats to nail Game Seven in 2019.
Chicago and Washington won't forget as long as those cities and those men live. The feeling is very mutual with the players involved.
"This city," Rizzo said when the deal to the Yankees was done, "will be ingrained in my heart for the rest of my life." Told he was as transformational a figure in Wrigley Field as anyone who ever wore a Cub uniform, Rizzo accepted the idea with no small pride. "That's what matters most — leaving this place better than when I found it. I can say the mission was accomplished."
Scherzer still wasn't sure whether he'd still be a Nat after he pitched Thursday and threw 3-hit, 1-run ball at the Phillies, in a start that was as much a showcase for his renewed health (he'd missed a start with a triceps strain a few days earlier) as for the trading floor. But he wanted to think about what Washington meant to him from the moment he'd signed that mammoth seven-year deal due to expire after this season.
First, there were the purely baseball considerations. "I signed a seven-year deal here and we won a World Series. That's the first thing I said when I signed, that I was here to win. And we won. We won a World Series," he said. "That's a lifelong dream come true and something I'll always be proud of with these guys here, to be part of a championship team, looking forward to reunions and stuff like that."
Then, there came the familial and community considerations. Scherzer arrived childless in Washington with his college-sweetheart wife, Erica. They're going to Los Angeles with two of Scherzer's three Cy Young Awards and three daughters.
"I've watched my girls grow up here," Max the Knife said. "Living in Virginia in the DMV area, I've really gotten used to it, all the politics that are going around. Being in the nation's capital has been kind of fun as well, driving by the monuments every day ... What can you say about the fans? That championship will always mean something to all of us and we'll always have that flag."
Parting with uber prospects Keibert Ruiz (catcher), Josiah gray (right-handed pitcher), Gerardo Carillo (right-handed pitcher), and Donovan Casey (outfielder) made sense only if the Dodgers were going to bring in something well above average. They brought in the best pitcher and the best position player — a still-young shortstop with a live bat — on the trading floor.
If the Dodgers want to close the brief distance between themselves and the uber-surprising Giants in this year's National League West, they couldn't have done better if they'd gone to the lab and mixed the right ingredients in the test tubes and beakers.
The Nats aren't exactly leaving themselves helpless. They have have pushed the plunger on this year, but with Juan Soto around whom to remodel they're looking at 2022 and beyond. Particularly with a returning Stephen Strasburg and who knows what off-season deals or signings to come.
Mostly, Scherzer relieves the pressures on the Dodger starting rotation, what with Dustin May lost for the season recovering from Tommy John surgery and Trevor Bauer persona non grata when all is said and done, in the wake of a police investigation into a couple of turns of rough sex crossing the line from consensual to downright unwanted sexual assault.
Whether he proves a rental or whether the Dodgers want to keep him for the rest of his baseball life remains to be seen. Don't bet against the Dodgers deciding to make the latter happen.
The Yankees should be so lucky with Rizzo and Gallo. Yes, they sent out a lineup full of raw power until those deals, but that lineup lacked consistency and left-handed hitting, the long-traditional fuel of that long-vaunted, long-legendary Yankee power.
Rizzo is the far more balanced hitter between the two newcomers as well as a multiple Gold Glover at third base. Gallo is so all-or-nothing despite his ability to work walks that he actually lets you imagine Mario Mendoza as a power hitter, but he is a solid defensive outfielder with range and arm enough to maybe make the Yankees forget about Brett Gardner at long enough last. Maybe.
So where was the pitching help the Yankees really needed? Why weren't they all-in yet on someone like Scherzer? Despite his expressed preference for going west, the Yankees have been nothing if not able to persuade such determined men otherwise in the past.
Why not all-in on resurgent and available Cubs closer Craig Kimbrel, who ended up going across town to the AL Central-leading White Sox? Especially with other teams trailing him including the Rays, rumored to be pondering a package of Kimbrel and Bryant coming aboard together until they didn't? Or resurgent and available reliever Daniel Hudson, the 2019 World Series finisher whom the Nats dealt to Seattle before the trading floor really began bristling with prize packages?
Or Jose Berrios, the formidable Twins starter whom the Blue Jays have snapped up for a pair of prospects and who'll have him through the end of 2022 at minimum pending their ability to sign him longer-term from there?
The Yankees are still in the race, technically. The problem is, they're three games plus behind the Athletics in the American League wild card picture and eight and a half games behind the Red Sox in the American League East.
And while Dodgers mastermind Andrew Friedman may be taking bows enough for Max the Knife and Trea Chic, Yankee general manager Brian Cashman — whose questionable at minimum construction of the current Yankee roster should take the heat Yankee fans heap upon hapless manager Aaron Boone — may yet have some very serious splainin' to do.
Leave a Comment