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Nationals and Dodgers have recent playoff ghosts; who is still haunted most?

October 6, 2016 at 9:04 p.m. EDT
The NL East division champion Nationals return to the postseason to face the Dodgers. The Post's beat writers preview the series, which begins Friday. (Video: Jayne Orenstein/The Washington Post, Photo: Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

In the baseball playoffs, your past follows you into the present. In many cases, that past — the confidence it has built or the dread it has bred — is as much a predictor of your next October chapter as any fact from the most recent season. That pained past can even feel like a predator.

The Nationals, preseason World Series picks in recent years, and the Dodgers, the team with the almost infinite budget, understand that burden more intensely than any other teams in their sport in recent years. Now, they meet in a best-of-five National League Division Series starting Friday to see which team can reverse their recent bitter history, and perhaps start a dramatic new upward direction for their future.

Both teams arrived at Nationals Park for workouts Thursday with the same image in mind. "Did you see Madison Bumgarner last night?" the Nats' Ryan Zimmerman said.

Trying to square regular-season Kershaw with postseason Kershaw

Everyone in baseball did, or heard about it. Bumgarner, just as he did in 2014, pitched a complete game shutout in the wild-card game to carry his Giants to the next round. In three victorious World Series for the Giants, he has a 0.25 ERA and has become legend.

In short, he has symbolized everything that both the Nats in general and the Dodgers, especially southpaw Clayton Kershaw, have been unable to master in the playoffs. How do you raise your game to a higher level as Bumgarner has? Or simply perform your best? Or — we are lowering our standards here out of kindness — play reasonably close to your best under pressure?

If you know, slip a note to the Nats, the Dodgers or Clayton.

Dusty Baker and the Nationals were meant for each other

One of these teams is going to advance. It’s a rule. Washington is aware of what befell the Nats in 2012 and 2014. But whatever embarrassment the Nats have felt dims beside the Dodgers’ postseason flops the past three years, when they had the capacity for vast payroll, bought duplicate players for some positions while still swallowing hideous old contracts and had both Kershaw and Zack Greinke atop their rotation.

Someday, baseball historians will look back at those past three Dodgers teams and say, “This is a bad joke, right?” In those years, Kershaw went 53-19 with a 1.92 ERA and Greinke was 51-15 with a 2.30 — and they won just one of four postseason series. Last season, that pair started four of five games and still lost in the first round for the second straight year.

So, if Nats fans think their team has far more pressure, dream on. Kershaw someday may be recalled as the greatest regular-season pitcher in the past hundred years, yet in the playoffs he is 2-6 with a mundane 4.59 ERA in 13 games, including 10 starts. Correctly hailed as the modern equivalent of Sandy Koufax, he personifies a proud, rich franchise that hasn't been to the World Series since 1988, but has to act, every year, like it is one good bounce from a title.

Daniel Murphy ‘confident’ he’ll be ready to go for Game 1

Some may doubt that players who have succeeded or failed in October in the past are in any way impacted in the present. But they would be wrong. Just as a streak or slump follows a player from one day to the next until, finally, the direction mysteriously reverses. October victories or flops simply wait 365 days, rather than 24 hours, to say, “Hello, I’m back!” If you are Reggie Jackson, Steve Garvey or any other Mr. October such as MadBum, you can’t wait for autumn.

But start badly, and it becomes a curse. In his first five playoffs, Barry Bonds batted .196 in 27 games with one homer. In Pittsburgh and San Francisco, he was an October basket case. Nats Manager Dusty Baker suffered through two of those Octobers in San Francisco, with Bonds as his slumping star. In his own career, Baker saw the flip side: In his first postseason, he drove in eight runs in four games for the Dodgers. That eased his mind for the rest of his career.

“I was [NLCS] MVP. Yeah, it helps a lot,” Baker said. “And if you don’t do well, that plays on some guys’ minds. When your star isn’t hitting . . . well, the year that Barry was hitting [2002], we went to the World Series. It helps if that big bat carries you. It takes pressure off everyone.”

Yes, the Nats want you to stand and cheer at home playoff games

In countless cases, the cure for bad playoff experiences is simply to keep making it back to the same stage.

“If you give good players enough chances, water seeks its level,” Nats GM Mike Rizzo said. “That’s why they call ’em ‘averages.’ ”

Nonetheless, for the past six years, Rizzo consciously has tried to accumulate players who already have fond memories. His spent $126 million for Jayson Werth, who has 14 postseason homers and a career .898 OPS. Last winter, he signed Daniel Murphy. Has any other team had two players who’ve had seven-homer postseasons — Werth in 2009 and Murphy last season with the Mets?

Rizzo also gave a $100 million extension to Zimmerman, in part because his 10 walk-off home runs rank 10th in MLB history. He was pressure-certified and has a .360 career playoff average. And Rizzo constantly says that his last worry is Bryce Harper, who has slugged .600 in two playoffs. Because Anthony Rendon hit .368 in his only playoff, the Nats’ Nos. 2-through-6 hitters all have positive personal histories, even if the Nats don’t yet.

The Nats need Gio Gonzalez and his curve to come up big vs. Dodgers

However, the Nats’ biggest investment in an October payoff was the $210 million paid to Max Scherzer two years ago. Scherzer had an ace’s mound-stalking hyper-competitive temperament and an ebullient extroversion that Rizzo hoped would be infectious to the Nats. At that time neither Stephen Strasburg nor Jordan Zimmermann had both qualities.

But Scherzer has things to prove, too. At 4-3 with a 3.73 postseasn ERA in 12 games, including 10 starts, Scherzer has a better pressure record than Kershaw but not by enough to matter greatly.

After Scherzer beat the Orioles this summer, he was asked if it pleased him even more because they had “history?” “Oh, yes,” he said. In 2014, the Tigers began the division series by pitching three Cy Young Award winners, led by Scherzer. The O’s beat all three. Season over.

Scherzer, the extroverted perfectionist, offers an ideal foil for Kershaw, the modest but proud perfectionist. Max should be glad Game 1 starts 90 minutes earlier than a normal Nats night game: He’s so amped already he might explode by 7:08 p.m.

“The park’ll just be rockin’. I’m a high-adrenaline pitcher and I know how to feed off it,” said Scherzer, who was similarly excited for his first matchup against his former Tigers teammates in June — he fanned 20 to tie the big-league record. Complexity, in October at least, isn’t for Scherzer.

“The more [mental] hoops you put up for yourself to jump through . . . it’s just not necessary,” he said Thursday. “I’ve also had heartbreak four times [in postseasons], so it’s pretty painful. I haven’t won the World Series. But I love these situations. . . . So much fun.”

Every year at this time, every player says some spin on those words. Then the games start.

"We found out in '12, you can say it's 'just another game,' but the feeling of the playoffs is different," Zimmerman said. "Some people like it; some don't. Some players feed off it."

And some get fed on?

“That’s pretty much right.”

Time to start sortin’ ’em out.