The National Pastime and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Inning

            It all came unstuck in the top of the fifth.

            With the home-field advantage and a 4-3 lead against the Chicago Cubs in game five of the National League Division Series, the Washington Nationals sent their ace reliever Max Scherzer to the mound. He retired the first couple of batters before allowing a pair of singles to put two men on. Then he gave up another hit that scored both runners.

Now down 5-4, the Nats intentionally walked Jason Hayward to create force-outs at all three bases. Scherzer fanned the next opponent, Javier Baez, but catcher Matt Wieter lost control of the ball on the third strike. As Baez sprinted for first, Wieter managed to overthrow both the first baseman and the backup fielder and fire the ball into deep right field. Another run crossed the plate and runners now occupied first and third. Catcher interference sent the following opponent to first and loaded the bases, then Sterzer hit Jon Jay with a pitch to walk in a run: 7-4 Cubs.

Washington never recovered. Final score, 9-8 Chicago. All of this happened on Thursday, October 12. The Nationals, it appeared, had gotten an early jump on Friday the Thirteenth – or it had gotten an early jump on them. An intentional walk, a passed-ball strikeout, catcher interference, and a hit-by-pitch on consecutive batters: it had never happened before in the history of big league baseball.

What do you do when it all goes against you? Yell, shake your fists at the heavens, curse your luck?

Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good  – Genesis 50.20. Joseph had a bad inning: thrown in a pit, sold into slavery, benched on a bogus rape beef, and tossed in the hole with a life sentence. At no point did he complain, despair, or engineer a master plan to right his wrongs, gain his revenge, and triumph over fate; he just kept doing the next right thing.

The New Testament take on Joseph’s proverb is, of course, Romans 8.28: We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. My own paraphrase of that has always been, “We can’t mess it up bad enough to frustrate God.”

So when it all goes south, take heart! In all of our fumbles and our stumbles, our drops and our flops, God remains calm. The Bible never promises us no-hitters or undefeated seasons. It promises something better: that the Almighty plays a long game, and gets glory no matter what. And that’s enough to keep us going, even when it all goes wrong.