Anibal Sanchez 1-Hit Gem May Be Proof the Nationals Are a Team of Destiny

Show of hands if you had the Nationals getting a brilliant, dominating performance from their starter! Well, sure, they've got Patrick Corbin, Stephen Strasburg, and Max Scherzer on the roster. But would you have believed that in Game 1 of the NLCS, the St. Louis Cardinals would be strangled within an inch of their lives by... Anibal Sanchez?

This is a man who threw a regular season no-no 13 years ago as a member of the Miami Marlins, but found himself practically out of baseball entirely by Spring Training 2018. He hung on with the Atlanta Braves and ended up pitching surprisingly well for a team that ended up winning the division.

Then, this past winter, the Braves decided that Sanchez wasn't good enough to stick around and re-sign. Enter the Nats, who took a chance on the 35-year old.

They were justly rewarded in their single biggest game of the year to date. 7.2 innings, one hit, one walk, five strikeouts. When the dust settled, the Nationals scored a 2-0 victory.

The heater was working. The signature super-slow stuff was working. The Cardinals, coming off a terrifically clutch NLDS performance against Atlanta, simply had no answer. And it's all of a piece: Washington might just be a team of destiny.

Seriously, who's going to win four of the next six against a team that boasts such an insanely good top three in the pitching rotation? Game 1 was St. Louis' perfect chance to take care of business at home at snag control of the series.

Now, the Nats are sitting pretty. And they've got to be dreaming of the Fall Classic at this rate.