Matt Williams left his pain to the imagination. Nine months have passed since the Washington Nationals lost to San Francisco in the playoffs, but time can't persuade the manager to turn introspective. He would rather stay immersed in the volume of a fresh baseball season, which, it turns out, can sometimes be more of a comfort than a grind.
Ask Williams how long it took him to get over the disappointment of the 2014 postseason, and he asks for a more specific question. Mumble a few quasi-specific extra words, and he declares, "That happened almost immediately. The work is never done. When your season comes to the end, unless you're the last one standing, it comes to an end very abruptly. At that point, you start looking forward to the next. You put it behind you. That work never stops."
That simple, huh?
Sure.
Williams was polite, but he probably would have been more forthcoming discussing a colonoscopy. He’s not one to keep touching a wound, curious whether it still hurts.
He doesn't need to revisit his Game 2 decision to pull Jordan Zimmermann and bring in closer Drew Storen with two outs in the ninth inning. He doesn't need to relay everything he might have done differently in the series. He doesn't need to lament the offense's woeful performance against the Giants' pitching.
Revisit pain? Williams fidgets. His intensity rises for a second. He shows a glimpse of why he earned the nickname “The Big Marine.” And then he disappears back into the season. The work is never done.
You know there is lingering disappointment. You figure it took weeks for Williams and the Nationals to heal — or at least suppress the agony. But in the middle of another season, there is too much promise to acknowledge it.
“I don’t know if we’ve thought about it,” Williams said. “Once you get back to the next season, it’s about that grind of that particular season. We certainly want to get back there and give it another go. That’s what we want.”
San Francisco returned to Nationals Park on Friday night for the first time since that 18-inning Game 2 affair in October. The Giants won that marathon, took the series in four games and went on to capture their third championship in five years.
And the Nationals, having lost two National League Division Series in a three-year span, are now left to prove a postseason point. The urgency became even greater after the franchise committed $210 million in free agency to add another superstar talent, Max Scherzer, and create an unrivaled starting rotation.
This Independence Day weekend series, which essentially ends the first half of the 2015 season, provides Reminder No. 12,497 of the enormous postseason expectations that await the Nationals if they take care of business the next three months. After failing to advance in their first two playoff opportunities and after all the suffering of October, the Nationals won’t get much credit for anything other than a deep playoff run this season. Even though the Giants came here with a mediocre record and smarting over a three-game sweep in Miami, the series can be viewed as a progress report.
If Washington wins the series, it won’t claim redemption. If the Nationals lose, they won’t make dramatic changes at the trade deadline. But nevertheless, they can evaluate themselves through a postseason prism, against a standard-bearer whose championship traits are intact.
“What we think about is an opportunity to play a really good team,” Williams said, noting that expectations for the series should be tempered partly because the Giants are without injured star outfielder Hunter Pence. “They’re a solid team all the way around. They pitch well. They don’t make many mistakes. They do a good job of manufacturing offensively. That formula works. It’s evident in the way they play and the success that they’ve had that the formula works. For us, it’s about taking advantage of any opportunity we get.”
On Friday night, the anticipated series began with an October-like game before a sellout crowd. The teams combined for eight hits, only three of them by the Nationals. Gio Gonzalez was sharp. Giants starter Jake Peavy again kept the Nationals off-balance. Clint Robinson hit a two-run homer in the seventh to give Washington the lead. And fittingly, the game ended with Storen facing Buster Posey, the man who started the two-out drama in Game 2 last year with a single. This time, Storen got Posey to fly out.
After a 2-1 victory, what was the Nationals' reward? The opportunity to play again, their 81st game, on Saturday.
The work is never done.
No therapy session needed. No burying the past. Just more baseball, another chance to get it right.
And in three months, perhaps all this persistence will soothe any lingering pain.
For more by Jerry Brewer, visit washingtonpost.com/brewer.
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