HOUSTON – “Is it worth it?”
That was the question catcher Kurt Suzuki asked his agents, Matt Hannaford and Dan Lozano, during the 2016-17 off-season.
The Braves were offering him a one-year, $1.5 million contract. But Suzuki, then 33, wasn’t certain he wanted to leave his family in Redondo Beach, Ca., and move cross-country to Atlanta. His wife, Renee, and three children, could not join him. The oldest of his three children, Malia, had started school.
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Suzuki was only a few months short of reaching 10 years of major-league service and becoming fully vested in Major League Baseball’s pension plan. Renee knew 10 years had been his goal. They had met when he was a walk-on and she was a volleyball player at Cal-State Fullerton. Their major-league odyssey had taken them from Oakland to Washington to Minnesota. And now, Renee thought, her husband was going to retire?
“She was very hard on me,” Kurt said. “She was like, ‘What are you doing?’”
Suzuki called back Hannaford and Lozano and apologized, telling them, “You busted your butt to get me this job, I’m going to do it.”
Was it worth it?
The question had been answered for Suzuki, 36, long before Wednesday night, during his monster second half with the Braves in 2017 and return to the postseason in ’18.
But then, playing in his first World Series after 13 seasons and nearly 1,500 games in the majors, Suzuki hit a go-ahead homer off Justin Verlander leading off the seventh inning of Game 2 in of the Nationals’ 12-3 rout of the Astros.
Was it worth it?
As Suzuki rounded the bases, he experienced a sensation many players describe after hitting a dramatic home run in October.
“I was floating,” he said.
Suzuki was 1-for-23 in the postseason before Wednesday night, with four walks and nine strikeouts.
“I want to see how many games I can go without getting a hit and have us keep winning,” he joked with Nats hitting instructor Kevin Long.
“You’re doing a great job at it,” Long cracked. “But please, we need you.”
Suzuki had been an offensive force during the regular season, producing 17 homers and an .809 OPS in just 309 plate appearances while splitting time at catcher with Yan Gomes. But oddly enough, he needed to face Verlander, a future Hall of Famer, to get himself right.
For whatever reason, Suzuki entered the game 14-for-42 lifetime against Verlander, a .333 batting average in a fairly large sample. Game 2 proved no different. Suzuki singled in his first at-bat. And in his second, Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo noticed him just miss a slider.
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Verlander was at 98 pitches to start the seventh, in what figured to be his final inning. Rizzo predicted to his son, Mike Jr., that the right-hander would challenge Suzuki with a fastball, and not risk throwing him another slider.
On 1-0, Suzuki got the fastball Rizzo envisioned and drilled it into the left-field seats, breaking a 2-2 tie.
“I was like, ‘No way, I just hit a home run in the World Series off of Verlander,” Suzuki said. “I’ve obviously faced him a lot. I know him. But I was like, ‘Tie game, too? You’ve got to be kidding me right now.’”
Little did he know how serious his accomplishment was.
With the homer, Suzuki became:
• The first catcher to hit a go-ahead homer in the seventh inning or later of a World Series game since Steve Yeager in 1981.
• The oldest player to hit a go-ahead home run in the seventh inning or later of a World Series game since Tommy Henrich in 1949.
• The first player from a Washington team to hit a go-ahead homer in the Series since Goose Goslin in 1933.
Suzuki’s homer kicked off a six-run inning, sparking the Nationals’ eighth straight postseason victory. Sitting in the stands at Minute Maid Park, all Renee could think about was how her husband deserved his moment.
Kurt had shared with Renee his concern about his poor hitting during the postseason. But he is a catcher first, even with his offensive breakthrough over the past three regular seasons. And heck, the Nats were winning.
“During the season, I’d be losing my mind right now,” he said. “But at this point in the postseason, as a catcher, it’s a long grind. My main focus is to call a game, help these pitchers, play defense the best I can. And if I hit, I hit.”
Nationals right-hander Max Scherzer said it was impossible not to notice Suzuki’s low postseason batting average on the scoreboard. But Scherzer, who calls Suzuki “hands-down, one of the best catchers I’ve ever thrown to,” used one word to describe his teammate’s contributions in helping the Nationals take a two-games-to-none lead:
“Invaluable.”
Three hours before the start of Game 2, Suzuki mentioned that he woke up sore in his back and hips after blocking so many of Scherzer’s pitches the previous night. Recalling how the Astros’ George Springer had advanced to third on a wild pitch in the first inning, he joked, “A 25-year-old Kurt Suzuki throws Springer out at third base. I had problems getting up.”
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Suzuki has been on the injured list only once in his career, in 2010. But he missed nearly two weeks with elbow inflammation in September, forcing him to alter his throwing mechanics with help from bullpen coach Henry Blanco, a former major-league catcher, and input from Scherzer (“the guy wants to learn about everything,” Suzuki said.)
As midnight approached on Wednesday, most of the Nationals already had left Minute Maid. Suzuki laid on a training table, with an athletic trainer stretching his legs and hips. It is a routine he used even when he was younger, a way to recalibrate his body after a night of crouching.
Rizzo had first acquired Suzuki for the Nationals on Aug. 3, 2012, parting with catcher David Freitas in a trade with the Athletics. Suzuki, in Rizzo’s estimation, “saved us,” helping fill a void created by Wilson Ramos’ season-ending knee injury, taking command of the pitching staff, contributing to the Nats’ first division title. But the following August, with Ramos again healthy and the Nats under .500, Rizzo traded Suzuki back to the Athletics for minor-league right-hander Dakota Bacus.
That offseason, Suzuki signed a one-year, $2.75 million free-agent contract with the Twins. He made his only All-Star team in 2014, earning a two-year, $12 million extension. It was at the end of that deal that Suzuki pondered retirement.
Three years later, he is still playing, and already under contract through 2020. Rizzo, who says Suzuki is “near and dear to my heart,” signed him to a two-year, $10 million free-agent deal last offseason, even though he had just turned 35. To support the Nationals’ high-priced rotation, Rizzo wanted veteran catchers.
“I didn’t know what team (would want me), but I think I had two offers in the first week of free agency,” Suzuki said. “I was like, ‘Holy crap, I guess I’ve got to do it.’”
Renee Suzuki stood outside the visiting clubhouse with other Nationals family members after Game 2 was complete, posing for photos with Kurt and their three children – Malia, 8; Kai, 5; and Eli 3.
Kai, she said, is the most passionate about baseball.
“Honestly, he thinks he’s like the 26th man,” Renee said. “He’s like the biggest cheerleader. He goes in the clubhouse. He lives and breathes baseball. My daughter, she likes to celebrate. And my little guy, he’s only 3. He knows the baby shark, things like that.”
Time passes quickly, almost as quickly, it seems, as Kurt’s home-run trot. Fifteen years ago, he was the 67th overall pick by the Athletics in the second round of the amateur draft, going three places behind Hunter Pence, two places behind Dustin Pedroia and one ahead of Jason Vargas.
Renee, though, still remembers him as a walk-on.
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“From that point, he’s always had to prove himself. I still feel like today he has to prove himself,” Renee said. “And he has that mentality. Just going through the process, the ups and downs, he just has such a strong mindset, accomplishing what he sets his mind to.
“I’ve been honored to witness this journey. It has been a journey. We’ve had personal ups and downs with our family members. He has always persevered through them.”
Wednesday night was his reward for 13 years of squatting, 13 years of waiting, 13 years of wondering if he would ever play on the game’s biggest stage.
“It’s crazy,” Suzuki said. “I look at the patch on my sleeve every once in a while during the game. And I’m like, ‘This is the World Series, man. Go out and enjoy it. Look at this. Look at the fans. Look at the media on the field before the game. It’s like a Super Bowl.’
“I can’t believe it. I just try to soak it all in. I just look around and say, ‘Man, this is the World Series.’ To be able to get a hit like that and still be playing, I just couldn’t have dreamt it better.”
No need to even ask if the journey was worthwhile. Suzuki knew the answer all along.
(Top photo: Tim Warner/Getty Images)
