2012 NLDS Game 4 vs Cardinals (Jayson Werth walk-off homer)

Lore & Background

The 2012 season was a breakthrough for the Nationals, who won a franchise-record 98 games and captured the National League East title. After splitting the first two games in St. Louis, the series returned to Washington for Game 4. The game was a taut pitcher's duel, with both teams struggling to score as the tension built with every zero on the scoreboard. In the bottom of the ninth, with the score tied 1-1, Jayson Werth stepped to the plate against Cardinals reliever Lance Lynn. On a 2-2 count, Werth crushed a 96-mph fastball deep into the left-field seats—a soaring, no-doubt shot that sent the crowd into a frenzy and forced a winner-take-all Game 5. It was the kind of swing that rewrites a franchise's history in a single arc.

Reader's Guide

Game 4 of the 2012 NLDS is remembered as a classic postseason thriller, a low-scoring chess match that exploded into legend. Both starting pitchers—Ross Detwiler for the Nationals and Adam Wainwright for the Cardinals—kept the offenses in check, trading zeroes like wary gunslingers. The Nationals took a 1-0 lead in the third inning on a sacrifice fly by Ryan Zimmerman, but the Cardinals tied it in the fourth on a solo home run by Yadier Molina, a shot that silenced the crowd for a moment before the noise returned.

The score remained 1-1 until the bottom of the ninth, the game hanging by a thread. With two outs, Jayson Werth worked a full count against Lance Lynn, fouling off pitches, refusing to give in. Then he launched a 96-mph fastball into the left-field bleachers for a walk-off home run—the first walk-off homer in Nationals postseason history. Though the Nationals ultimately lost Game 5, Werth's blast remains a cherished moment, a symbol of the team's resilience and the electric, almost sacred atmosphere of that playoff run.