Williams on decision in ninth: "I kicked myself ... but we have a reason for that move"

SAN FRANCISCO - The Nationals have the day off in the sense that they don't have a game to play today. They will get the afternoon and evening to acclimate themselves to the Pacific time zone and to get a bit of a breather before tomorrow's Game 3. They do have an optional workout here at AT&T Park, however, and Matt Williams was impressed with the turnout he saw from his players. "The buses are full," Williams said. Williams and tomorrow's starter, Doug Fister, met with the media this afternoon, and the manager's session with reporters covered a wide range of topics - from his team's offensive struggles through the first two games of this series to what makes tomorrow's Giants starter, Madison Bumgarner, so good. Jordan-Zimmermann-NLDS.jpgWilliams also was asked, with the benefit of some time to reflect, whether he was comfortable with his decision to pull Jordan Zimmermann with two outs in the top of the ninth inning last night, and go with closer Drew Storen in an attempt to record the game's final out. Zimmermann had retired 20 batters in a row prior to his two-out walk of Joe Panik in the ninth last night, and was at 100 pitches on the day. Instead of giving Zimmermann the shot to complete the game by retiring Buster Posey, Williams called upon Storen. Storen had a 1.12 ERA in the regular season and was 10-for-10 in save chances since taking over the closer's role in early September, but he blew the save last night, with Posey dropping a single off the end of the bat into left-center and then Pablo Sandoval bringing in the game-tying run with a double down the left field line. With that decision now behind him, how does Williams feel about it today? "Well, any time you make a decision on something and it doesn't work, you kick yourself," Williams said. "I kicked myself all night. That's human nature. But we also have a reason for that move. The reason for that move, as I explained it last night, was Buster missed a breaking ball on him, hit a deep fly ball to right field on a fastball, hit a first-pitch slider and lined it to third base that Anthony (Rendon) made a great play on. "To say, OK, we need Drew ready for Buster. We gave Jordan the opportunity to go out there and complete the game. But knowing that if he gets in trouble, that we have our closer up and available and ready - that's standard practice. "You kick yourself any time it doesn't work. However, you have to put your guys in a position to do their jobs and what they do. So that being said, I don't have a problem with it. It didn't work out. But we've got our best guy, who is the closer, coming in to pick up the guy that just gave us all he had for 8 2/3." Williams went on to say that he didn't want to bring Storen into a situation where he needed to get out of a first-and-second, two-out jam. If Storen was going to come into that game, Williams wanted him to face Posey. "Now, could you say that it was the wrong move? Of course you can," Williams said. "You could say that. Could you say it was the right move? Yes, you could say that, as well. It didn't work out. That being said, yeah, I kick myself for bringing Drew in and having (Sandoval) tie the game. Beyond that, we had nine more innings to win it. So that's how I look at it. ... "Sandoval hit a ball down the line, so, it happened. That's baseball. What can you do about it except adjust from there and go on?"
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