Brad Hand saw how things were lining up, they’d discussed it beforehand, so as the club took a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the seventh in Wednesday afternoon’s series finale in the nation’s capital, the Washington Nationals’ closer prepared for a 5-out save opportunity against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Did he approach it any differently than he would if it was just three outs?
“I mean, I’m not approaching it different,” the 31-year-old reliever said. “I knew that there was a possibility, I knew who was coming up in the eighth, I knew [Gregory] Polanco was up 4th, so going into the eighth inning I was expecting the phone call, so with the day off tomorrow, I didn’t pitch yesterday, so I was expecting to get up right there with Polanco coming up fourth.