WASHINGTON _ The Nationals took the lead, then fumbled their way through a disastrous inning, before setting out on a long and arduous climb back. With their season on the line, with their wretched postseason history tied to their backs like an anchor, they nearly turned all of their misfortune into a defining moment for a franchise that has never known October glory.
But Game 5 of the National League Division Series turned on the last of a series of critical mistakes. Moments after Nationals catcher Jose Lobaton singled to place the tying run in scoring position in the eighth inning, he was picked off on a snap throw by Cubs counterpart Willson Contreras for the third out.
With that, the Nationals authored yet another horrific chapter in their October failures, falling to the Cubs, 9-8.
For the third straight season, the Cubs _ who were led by Addison Russell's four RBIs _ advanced to the National League Championship Series. They did so despite a treacherous nine innings that required a total of 38 players over 4 hours, 37 minutes, ending with weary closer Wade Davis nailing down a seven-out save.
The Nationals' Michael A. Taylor knocked in four runs, including a three-run homer that gave his team the lead in the second and an RBI single in the eighth that sliced the deficit to one run. But it wasn't enough to undo the calamity of a mistake-filled fifth inning, when ace Max Scherzer faltered in relief and the Cubs seized a 7-4 lead they wouldn't relinquish after sending 10 men to the plate.
Since moving to Washington in 2005, the Nationals franchise has reached the Division Series four times in the last six years. For all their brilliance, they have never advanced, the cruelty of that fate becoming official when Bryce Harper struck out and the Cubs stormed the mound.
The defending World Series champion Cubs will face the Dodgers in the NLCS.
With the Nationals down 1-0 in the second, Daniel Murphy cracked his first extra-base hit of the series, a solo homer that ignited the rest of the lineup. Anthony Rendon flared a single to center and Matt Wieters bunted his way on against the shift to bring Taylor to the plate. One night after his grand slam iced Game 4, his three-run shot carried through the crisp air and sailed over the Cubs' bullpen in left-center, sending his teammates spilling from the Nationals' dugout to bask in a 4-1 lead.
The Cubs clawed back, scratching out a pair of runs against Gio Gonzalez in the third, his final inning. Kris Bryant led off with a double and scored on Russell's groundout. With Jason Heyward up, a wild pitch from Gonzalez allowed Contreras to score, cutting the Cubs' deficit to 4-3.
Scherzer's jog from the right-field bullpen to the mound to begin the fifth inning sent a surge through Nationals Park. Moments later, he was pumping 98 mph, the adrenaline pushing him through only his second outing since he injured his hamstring on Sept. 30.
The two-time Cy Young Award winner got to two strikes against Contreras, who reached on an infield single. Ben Zobrist laced a pinch-hit single and Russell lashed a two-run double past a diving Rendon to give the Cubs a 5-4 lead, all after Scherzer had come within one strike of ending the inning.
Then things got weird.
Heyward was intentionally walked even though he already had stranded four runners. Javier Baez reached after a passed ball on a strikeout, with Wieters making the play even worse by throwing wide of first and gifting the Cubs a run _ on what might have been a dead ball. Baez's bat appeared to strike Wieters on his backswing, which by rule would have been a dead ball had plate umpire Jerry Layne seen it.
The inning devolved further when pinch hitter Tommy LaStella reached on an interference by Wieters. Scherzer capped the strange sequence by plunking Jon Jay on the leg with the bases loaded, forcing in a run.
By the end, the Cubs sent 10 men to the plate and scored four runs against a vanquished Scherzer, seizing a 7-4 lead after falling behind 4-1. For the Nationals, it ultimately was a sin too great to erase.
Russell's run-scoring double in the sixth made it 8-4, but Murphy's RBI double in the bottom of the inning capped a two-run rally that brought the Nationals within 8-6. Harper's sacrifice fly in the seventh made it 9-7 and Taylor added an RBI single with two outs in the eighth. Lobaton's single put runners on first and second before Contreras picked him off.
