NATIONALS ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES

NATIONALS 7 - CARDINALS 4
WSH Wins Series 4-0 

Look away Mets fans.  NL East rival, the Washington Nationals are on their way to the franchise's first ever World Series. The franchise that once known as the Montreal Expos - a franchise that only came close to the fall classic in the 1981 NLCS, finally tasted glory on Tuesday night.

This has been building for some time now in Washington. When the Nats were in the process of beating the LA Dodgers in five games, there was a sense that this team could do just about anything, and a trip to the World Series seemed possible.

The Nationals wasted no time, scoring seven runs in the opening inning of Game 4, grabbing a commanding 7-0 lead. 11 hitters came to bat for Washington in the bottom of the first, eight of them reached base. It was an impressive way to start a clincher.

All the runs went to the good of starter Patrick Corbin, who gave up four runs over five innings, but still managed to strike out 12 batters on the night.

The key to this game had to be the efforts of the Nats bullpen as Tanner Rainey, Sean Doolittle and Daniel Hudson combined to hold the Cardinals to just one hit over the final four innings of Game 4.

This is an incredible story, one that has been overshadowed by the Yankees-Astros series. The Nationals were 12-games under .500 in May at 19-31 after getting swept by the Mets.

 It looked like manager Dave Martinez would be on his way out the door, especially with a team that has had a trigger finger when it comes to firing managers.

Instead the Nats rallied, going 72-38 in their final 100 games of the regular season, captured the top Wild Card slot by a wide margin, and did with Juan Soto and Anthony Rendon providing MVP-calliber numbers.

And to think this was a team that lost its superstar, Bryce Harper to free agency last winter. The Nationals overcame that and so much more to get this point. The earned the right to be in the World Series.