We wait now to see whether Justin Verlander, one of the great pitchers of this time and one of the best of all time, can finally get a victory in a World Series in Game 6 and help the Astros win their second World Series in three years. But if he doesn’t, if Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals win another game on the road and this thing goes the distance, then we will get a Game 7 at Minute Maid Park on Wednesday night, and Zack Greinke will be the Astros starter.
It would mean that Greinke would effectively be pitching his second Game 7 of the 2019 World Series, because he sure pitched one on Friday night at Nationals Park.
If the Astros had lost that one, they were as good as gone.
Greinke didn’t get the win in Game 3, one the Astros entered down two games to none. He left with two outs in the fifth and runners on second and third before Josh James came on to get the last out of the bottom of the fifth. But on a night when the Nationals had runners all over the bases against Greinke, and had their chances to jump on the Astros early, Greinke held the damage to a single run.
"He’s ultra focused and doesn’t get too caught up in the stress of the innings," manager AJ Hinch said. "He has a slow heartbeat for that stuff. And he can really disrupt the timing of hitters at the right moment."
In the process, he did as much as anybody did over the weekend to save the season for his team, which didn’t become his team until the Astros got him from Arizona at the Trade Deadline. Greinke is another one of the best pitchers of his time. He has moved around more than Verlander, or Gerrit Cole.
But what he showed everybody on Friday night, when his team needed him the most, with runners on base in all of the innings he was out there, is that he’s not just good enough to have the ball in those situations.
He’s tough enough. He showed it during the American League Championship Series, after some fools in the stands mocked his anxiety disorder at Yankee Stadium. He showed it again in Game 3. He was as tough as David Cone was for Joe Torre in Game 3 of the 1996 World Series, after the Yankees had lost their first two games at home.
That was the night when Torre famously left Cone out there with the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth and the Yankees leading 2-0. Torre came out and asked Cone if he was “OK” to face Fred McGriff.
“If I had been writing the scene, this is the way I would have written it,” Cone told me one time.
He got out of the inning. The Yankees' bullpen took it from there the way the Astros did Friday night, first Josh James, then Brad Peacock and Will Harris and Joe Smith and Roberto Osuna, all of them preserving their team’s 4-1 victory.
None of it matters if the Nationals had jumped the Astros early. Greinke wouldn’t let them.
“This guy doesn’t scare off,” Hinch said of Greinke when it was over.
Anthony Rendon doubled to left with two outs in the first. Greinke got the hot kid, Juan Soto, to ground to first base. Asdrúbal Cabrera and Ryan Zimmerman opened the second inning with back-to-back singles. Greinke struck out Kurt Suzuki and got Victor Robles to ground into a double play. In the third came Greinke’s McGriff moment. The out he had to have. Bases loaded. Two outs. Cabrera, a hot hitter in the postseason, at the plate.
Greinke struck him out.
He yielded a run in the fourth when Robles tripled home Zimmerman with one out. The pitcher, Aníbal Sánchez, popped out trying to bunt. Greinke got Trea Turner to ground out to end the inning. Hinch finally came to get him with two outs in the fifth, after Cabrera had doubled Adam Eaton to third. James got out of the inning. He did his job. But Greinke had sure done his, as Game 7 had come early for a team that had won 107 games during the regular season but was suddenly up against it in the World Series.
We may very well end up with another Game 7. It is hard to see the Nationals, who have been grinding away since 19-31, going away quietly, as loud as it will be at Minute Maid Park. But if there is a Game 7, Greinke will know how to do it. Been there Friday night. Done that.
Mike Lupica is a columnist for MLB.com.