September 1, 2022: Joey Meneses walk-off home run caps Nationals rally in 10th inning

“Play out the string: For a team to continue to play although it is not in contention.”—The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, Third Edition1

It happens every season when the calendar turns to September. The chase for a postseason berth reaches the homestretch. A month earlier, some teams are buyers at the trading deadline in hopes of boosting their competitive chances for a postseason berth. The sellers are teams for which the season’s end will leave the dream of postseason baseball unfulfilled.

Both the Oakland Athletics and the Washington Nationals had secured postseason berths in the recent past. The A’s played in the American League playoffs for three consecutive years, 2018-2020. The Nationals were National League postseason participants for three of four seasons, 2016-2019, culminating in the 2019 World Series title.2

But this season was different. The terminology to describe their fates in 2022 first appeared in the press in 1912. The New York Tribune noted that with three weeks to go in the regular season and the New York Giants and Boston Red Sox leading their respective leagues by wide margins, “the National and American Leagues pennant races will come to a more or less dreary end on October 5.” For the others, “interest is bound to wane in playing out the string.”3

To no one’s surprise, the Athletics and Nationals were doing just that as they completed a three-game series at Nationals Park. Before the season even started, the A’s traded three established players to postseason contenders—pitcher Chris Bassitt (New York Mets), first baseman Matt Olson (Atlanta Braves), third baseman Matt Chapman (Toronto Blue Jays). For Nationals fans, the bombshell hit at the August trading deadline when right fielder Juan Soto and first baseman Josh Bell were traded to the San Diego Padres.4 Two last-place teams for nearly the entire season playing out the string.

Author and sports columnist Barry Svrluga aptly described what fans should expect to see at the ballpark on this day—the unexpected! “Watch the game enough, and the patterns become familiar and unmistakable, even as there’s no way to know what will happen on the next pitch or the next night.”5

The mound opponents were each looking for their first big-league win of the season. Paolo Espino (0-6, 4.35 ERA) started for the Nationals. The A’s Ken Waldichuk was making his major-league debut, and the Nationals wasted little time against him in the first inning.6 After Lane Thomas doubled to left on the first pitch, Washington right fielder Joey Meneses, a 30-year-old rookie whose first shot at the majors had followed Soto and Bell’s deadline departure, singled to center for the early lead. Nelson Cruz singled, putting runners on first and third with one out, but the Nationals failed to capitalize.

The Nationals had several opportunities over the next two innings to extend the lead but failed to do so. Alex Call opened the second with a triple but was stranded at third. Meneses opened the third inning with a single to center, his second hit of the game, and Waldichuk walked Luke Voit. When César Hernández walked with two outs, the bases were loaded. An opportunity for a timely hit was missed, however, when Waldichuk retired Call on a fly ball to left field.

Meanwhile, Espino, with a large dose of looping curveballs, was in control over the first four innings. He limited the Athletics to just two singles while striking out six. His season’s pitching record suggested getting through the batting order a second time would be a challenge.7 To open the fifth inning, he yielded a solo home run to Shea Langeliers. Espino in his last inning of work yielded two more hits, sandwiching a double-play ball and leaving the game tied at 1-1.

As for Waldichuk, he made it into the fifth in his debut. With two outs, he walked Cruz and wild-pitched him to second, then walked Luis García before being replaced by Joel Payamps. Payamps induced Hernández to ground out, ending any threat.

The Athletics broke the tie in the top of the seventh against reliever Jake McGee. Cristian Pache walked and was sacrificed to second. After Chad Pinder struck out, Tony Kemp singled to right, scoring Pache. Carl Edwards Jr. replaced McGee, but consecutive singles by Sean Murphy and Seth Brown gave the Athletics a 3-1 lead.

Joey Meneses was at it again in the bottom of the seventh with a one-out single to left, his third hit. He advanced to third when Voit singled to left and scored on Cruz’s groundout, narrowing Oakland’s lead to one run. In the eighth, A’s reliever Sam Moll hit Hernández, before striking out Call and Riley Adams. Lefty A.J. Puk replaced Moll, forcing switch-hitter Ildemaro Vargas to bat from the right side.8 Vargas singled to left, scoring Hernández, and it was tied 3-3 going to the ninth.

After Kyle Finnegan retired the Athletics on three groundballs, the Nationals had a chance to end the game on a walk-off of any type. With one out, Cruz singled to right. Victor Robles, running for the 42-year-old Cruz, stole second, but neither Garcia nor Hernández could deliver that walk-off and the game moved to the 10th inning.

Hunter Harvey replaced Finnegan. With the automatic runner (pinch-runner Sheldon Neuse) on second, Harvey retired the first two batters but walked Vimael Machin. When Langeliers doubled to right, driving in his second and third runs of the game, the Athletics led 5-3 and fans began moving toward the exit. But wait!9

Norge Ruiz replaced Puk and Hernández began the inning at second base, advancing to third on a groundout. Keibert Ruiz pinch-hit for Adams and delivered a single to right, scoring Hernández and cutting the deficit to one run.

Vargas struck out for the second out, but when Lane Thomas walked, advancing Ruiz to second, manager Davey Martinez put the faster CJ Abrams in to run for Ruiz. It wouldn’t be necessary!

Meneses’ fourth hit of the game came on a 2-and-2 slider, clearing the right-field wall for a three-run home run and a 7-5 Nationals walk-off win. Of course, the usual wild celebration followed at home plate.

For Joey Meneses, the numbers for his one-month major-league career were remarkable—.354 batting average, 1.011 OPS. His 35 hits and 7 home runs in 25 games were a record for a Nationals rookie.10

Indeed, Meneses, one of six Nationals to debut in the majors in 2022, finished his two-month-long rookie season in fine fashion—.324 batting average, .930 OPS, 13 home runs, and 34 runs batted in.11

A native of Mexico who originally signed with the Atlanta Braves as a 19-year-old in 2011, Meneses also played minor-league ball in the Philadelphia Phillies and Red Sox organizations and was often blocked at the major-league level by established stars at first base.12 In 2019 his season in Japan with the Orix Buffaloes was cut short by a one-year suspension for use of a banned substance; he returned to play baseball in Mexico.13

Meneses was signed by the Nationals in 2022 to play for the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings, for whom he batted .286 with 20 home runs and 64 runs batted in 96 games. Opportunity was about to knock. Bell was traded and Meneses debuted at first base at Nationals Park on August 2.

As the regular season was about to end, Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell speculated about a potential storyline for Meneses’ future: “the player who won’t quit, figures out how to hit in his late 20s and keeps belting until he’s 35 or even 40.”14 Boswell leaves his readers with the tantalizing possibilities. “A bet on Meneses costs little. The odds against him are still long, but he could pay off big.”15

Author’s note

The walk-off home run is the most dramatic of baseball plays. It strikes suddenly and the exuberance of the hometown fans is immediate and unmistakable. Remember that longtime fans had become accustomed to a career-full by Ryan Zimmerman.16 For the Nationals, this walk-off victory was their first of the 2022 season in their 131st game.

In the moment, the reality of spending nearly the entire season in last place in the National League’s East Division was of little consequence. There would be time to reflect as Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo did at season’s end. “I’ve always said that you are what your record says you are, and our record says we are the worst team in the league right now. And it is hard to argue with that.”17

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

The author accessed Retrosheet.org (retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2022/B09010WAS2022.htm) and Baseball-Reference.com (baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS202209010.shtml) for box scores/play-by-play and other data. The Joey Meneses baseball card (2022 Topps Now #645), celebrating the first home run of his major-league career in his very first game, was obtained from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, Third Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 657.

2 Steven C. Weiner, “October 30, 2019: Clutch pitching, late hitting lead Washington Nationals to World Series title,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

3 “Three Weeks More of Baseball, Then the Climax,” New York Tribune, September 15, 1912: 10.

4 On August 2, 2022, the Nationals traded Juan Soto and Josh Bell to the San Diego Padres for CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Luke Voit, and minor league prospects Robert Hassell, Jarlin Susana, and James Wood.

5 Barry Svrluga, The Grind, Inside Baseball’s Endless Season (New York: Blue Rider Press, 2015), 2.

6 Waldichuk, a Yankees minor-league prospect, was sent to the A’s as part of another August trading-deadline deal that sent pitchers Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino to New York.

7 Mark Zuckerman, “Second Time Through Lineup Does In Espino Again in Loss,” MASNSports.com, September 27, 2022, masnsports.com/blog/second-time-through-lineup-does-in-espino-again-in-loss. Through his appearance on September 27 against the Braves, Espino had held opponents to a .226 batting average and .665 OPS the first time through the lineup. When he faced hitters a second time through the order, those numbers skyrocketed to.370 and 1.014.

8 Actually, Vargas’ career batting average against left-handed pitchers (.235) was only slightly lower than against right-handed pitchers (.249). In 2022 those batting averages were .253 and .269, respectively.

9 Even the author moved to a customary spot in the left-field plaza to watch the bottom of the 10th inning in anticipation of a quick exit.

10 Jesse Dougherty, “Meneses Delivers Nats’ First Walk-Off,” Washington Post, September 2, 2022: D4.

11 The other players to make their major-league debut with the Nationals in 2022 included Lucius Fox, Evan Lee, Jackson Tetreault, Cade Cavalli, and Israel Pineda.

12 Dickson, 117. “block 7. v To make a minor league prospect’s advance to the major leagues more difficult because he plays the same position as that of an established star.”

13 Jesse Dougherty, “Still Producing, Meneses Is Having a Moment and Building a Future,” Washington Post, September 23, 2022: D5.

14 Thomas Boswell, “Is Nationals’ Meneses Too Good to Be True? What If He’s For Real?” Washington Post, September 30, 2022: D1.

15 Boswell.

16 Steven C. Weiner, “Ryan Zimmerman and the Walk-Off Home Run,” Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2021, 7-12.

17 Jesse Dougherty, “107-Loss Nationals Keep Trust in Process,” Washington Post, October 6, 2022: D1.