Who else? Unsung hero hits World Series-winning HR
HOUSTON – To outsiders, Howie Kendrick was easy to ignore on the Nationals.
He does not have the ninefigure contracts that four of his teammates possessed.
He’s been an All-Star once.
At 36, he is practically the epitome of an itinerant veteran, a man who considered retirement three years ago until he found a club that held his experience in high regard.
And yet even in Washington, Kendrick had no future beyond 2019, not even a permanent position on the field.
Until he forged one himself: savior.
Kendrick’s glorious run through the playoffs was capped in the seventh inning of Game 7 of the World Series, when he turned what seemed certain defeat for the Nationals into the first championship in franchise history. He rode a Will Harris pitch out to right field, the ball clanging off the foul pole for a two-run homer, a one-run deficit now a Nationals advantage and just nine outs away from a title.
That title was cemented with a 6-2 Game 7 victory, yet for Kendrick, hitting what was essentially a World Series-winning home run counts as just his second-biggest hit of the playoffs.
After all, it was his grand slam in the 10th inning of the NL Division Series that slayed the Dodgers and gave the Nationals their first-ever playoff series victory.
That seems so long ago. For then, Kendrick went on to claim NL Championship Series MVP honors by destroying the Cardinals with a flurry of line drives, to the tune of five hits in 15 atbats, four crucial runs driven in and a 1.012 OPS.
And then came Game 7, and in the time it took his ball to strike yellow pay dirt, 2-1 Astros became 3-2 Nationals.
It was a stunner. To most. “I’ve said it the entire time only
I’ve been here – if we’ve got guys on base, in scoring position, two outs, I want Howie Kendrick at bat,” giddy Nationals closer Daniel Hudson said after recording the final three outs of the season.
“Nobody else. He finds the barrel to the ball, almost every single at-bat. It’s incredible.”
Kendrick was a human history-maker this October, starting with his blast off Joe Kelly at Dodger Stadium and culminating with his drive off Harris, which came off the bat at 98 mph but seemed to freeze in time for the Nationals.
Hunter told me at the time, ‘Man, when you come back you’re going to be a completely different guy.’
“It feels like ever since that time, I’ve been a better player, a more confident player, and more of a teammate.”
There was the 2016 trade from the playoff-bound Dodgers to the moribund Phillies, a move that forced him to ponder retirement, knowing that there was precious little room for players in their 30s these days.
And then there was 2018, a lost season for the Nationals and a hopeless one for Kendrick, as he wheeled around the clubhouse in the wake of surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles tendon, vowing to be ready for spring training in 2019.
“That’s the only way I can be. If I’m miserable about it, I’ll never get right,” he says. “I told the team, ‘Hey, I’ll be ready to go for spring training.’ And that’s the mind-set I have about everything – I’m always upbeat.”
And as willing and able to pick up a teammate as he is to barrel a baseball.
“He’s a key component to our leadership structure here, a mentor to our young players,” says Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo, who thought so highly of Kendrick he signed him to a two-year deal after acquiring him from Philadelphia in 2017.
“But he can still roll the pole, man. He can hit, he hits in big situations and he has to have a strong back – because he carried us for about three months.”
When Kendrick and the Nationals came north after spring training, he had a new locker in the clubhouse – the former stall of superstar Bryce Harper. Certainly, no one anticipated Kendrick filling the production of the $330 million man and 2015 MVP. But the symbolism was real: Kendrick was going to matter.
It all happened so quickly. Kendrick had never played in a World Series in his 16 big-league seasons, and just twice had reached a league championship series.
That it all came with this team – the big hits, the championship, a parade and all the trappings – only felt better.
“Hopefully, I make my teammates proud,” Kendrick said amid the postgame haze of booze. “This is the best group of guys I’ve ever played with – the type of people that regardless of the situation or the outcome we get ready for battle every day.
“And that’s what it’s about – the mind-set of everybody in here has been special all year. To be able to come back, to be a part of this, is truly special. It made all the work worth it.”