LOS ANGELES -- The Washington Nationals bullpen spent the regular season defying belief. During the MLB postseason, they're defying convention.
In Tuesday's wild-card win over the Brewers, Stephen Strasburg pitched three dominant innings in relief of ace Max Scherzer to pick up the win. On Friday, in Washington's 4-2 victory over the Dodgers in Game 2 of the NLDS, Scherzer returned the favor by throwing a lights-out eighth inning to preserve the lead that Strasburg helped build with a strong six-inning start.
For the Nationals, whose bullpen futility in playoffs past has been their undoing and is surpassed only by their historic bullpen futility during the 2019 regular season, this is not an insignificant development.