“Home Sweet, Not Home?”

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Dante Micaletti, Sports Writer

The American League Champions for 2019 are the Houston Astros.  They finished with a 107-55 record, which was the best of the majors.  Alex Bregman led the team with 41 home runs, and 112 RBI’s.  The Astros also had two Cy Young candidates, Justin Verlander, and Gerrit Cole.  Alex Bregman is an AL MVP candidate.

The National League Champions are the Washington Nationals.  The Nats finished with a 93-69 record, which was good enough for a home wild-card game.  Anthony Rendon led the team with 34 home runs, and 126 RBI’s.  Anthony Rendon is an MVP candidate, and Max Scherzer is a CY Young candidate.

In the NL Wild Card Game, the Nats played the Brewers in Washington.  Max Scherzer started the game for the Nats, and Sean Woodruff started for the Brewers.  The Brewers hoped out to an early lead, but a big 3 run single(off of errors) gave the Nats a 4-3 lead which they never lost.  They would have the Dodgers in the next round.  Astros waited for the winner of the Rays and Athletics game.  The Rays ended up winning.

First Round: The Nats played the Dodgers the series was a tight one.  The Dodgers took an early 1-0 lead, coming from a great start from Walker Buehler.  The Dodgers and Nats split the next 2 games, and the Nats had their backs on the wall heading into game 4.  A great start from Max Scherzer launched the Nats into game 5 going back to LA.  Game 5 was an interesting game.  Max Muncy started off the game hot for the Dodgers, and they took an early lead through the 7th.  The Nats came storming back scoring 2 in the 8th and sent it into extra innings.  In the 10th, the Nats loaded up the bases, with Howie Kendrick up to bat.  Howie sent a monstorous homeroom  into the night sky, propelling the Nats to a 3-2 series victory.

First Round: Astros go against a 96 win Rays team, and who’s starting pitching was the best in the American League.  The first two games went heavely the Astros way, as they jumped out to an early 2-0 lead.  With Zach Greinke and Justin Verlander taking the hill for the Astros, it would almost guranteed to end in Tampa Bay.  But, the Rays hit bombs off of both pitchers, and took a game 5 back to Houston.  With the pitching advantage, the Astros were heavily favored at home.  They defeated the Rays 6-1, and the Astros defeated them 3-2.  

Semi-Finals:  The Cardinals defeated the Braves in 5 games, and were early favorites in the series.  But, that didn’t stop the Nats.  In 4 games, the Nationals only gave up 6 runs the whole series, and scored 20.  It is my judgement that the Cardinals just looked tired and beat.  The Nats swept them 4-0, and had the ability to rest up after winning the National League.  

Semi-Finals: 

The moment we’ve all been waiting for… The World Series!!!! The Nationals take an dominating 2-0 series lead. But Houston wasnt giving up yet. Winning 3 straight taking a series lead 3-2. The World Series just got interesting. The Nats tie it up 3-3! The next game was do or die for both teams. Greinke vs Scherzer two of the games best right handers going at it. Both threw strong games as expected. Things weren’t looking good early for the Nationals losing for the first 6 innings. But they weren’t gonna give up scoring 3,1,2 the next three innings compared to the Astros 0. Wining with a score of 6-2. Stephen Stragsburgh won world series MVP. He didn’t lose a game in the playoffs. An interesting fact is in not one of the World Series games did the home team win. This was the first time in World Series history! And in my opinion the best World Series yet!

Key leaders throughout the playoffs for the world champions. Anthony Redon lead the team with an impressive .328 Average. Juan Soto lead with 5 home runs!  Some game savings ones! RBI leader was old reliable Rendon with 15, he also lead hits and on base percentage. The World Series MVP  Stephen Strasburg was 5-0 with an 1.98 ERA.  Scherzer was also undefeated with a 3-0 record. The Nats number three man Anibal Sanchez finished off the post season 1-1.  Strasburg won the World Series deservingly but there were several players who also could of deservingly won it! This shows how they played as a team and thats what wins you World Series!  Without a doubt, Redon, Soto, Kendrick, and Scherzer all played outstanding throughout the series!