That darn D-word

No, sir. Uh-uh. Not on your granny's banana-cream pie recipe.

The Blob does not care how pitifully the ghost of Walter Johnson wheedles. It is immune to Frank Howard's menacing glower. It refuses to listen to the entreaties of, I don't know, some other guy, because after the Big Train and Big Frank the Blob has frankly exhausted its knowledge of old Washington Senators legends.

In any case, it is not going to roll out the D-word this a.m., despite what the Sens' spiritual descendants did in L.A. last night. Knocked the mighty Dodgers out of the playoffs, is what the Washington Nationals did. Beat 'em 7-3 in 10 innings even though the Mighty Dodgers, who were the best team in the National League all season by miles and miles, had ace Walker Buehler on the bump and were cruising 3-1 behind him with six outs to go.

But then, weird stuff started happening.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts brought in noted playoff flop Clayton Kershaw to pitch the eighth, and Kershaw promptly gave up back-to-back solo home runs on consecutive pitches. Which is kinda hard to do if you think about it, even if you're not Clayton Kershaw.

Fast forward to the 10th, when Roberts sent out a reliever (Joe Kelly) for a second inning who hadn't pitched more than one inning at a stretch since August. Kelly promptly loaded the bases and then gave up a grand slam to Howie Kendrick, and that was your ballgame.

Now the Nats are in against the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS.

They're there even though they were trailing 3-1 in the eighth in the wild-card game against the Brewers, too, but got off that hook to advance to the divisional series.

They're there even though Bryce Harper doesn't play for them anymore, a circumstance that has to be killing Harper right now no matter what he says.

And so, yes, some will use the dreaded D-word phrase:

Team of destiny!

Uhhh, no. Not buyin'.

Not buyin', because this is baseball, and destiny (and momentum) lasts all of one night, usually, which is how long it takes to get to the next game and your opponent's next pitcher. Your opponent's next pitcher comes out throwing darts, there goes your destiny. Your opponent's manager doesn't succumb to brain cramps the way Dave Roberts did, the D-word is just shorthand for "done like dinner."

So, we'll see. The Blob, frankly, would love to see it. It would love to see the underdog Rays find a way to knock out the Astros tonight, too, and then go on to knock out those jamokes from the Bronx, and then, suddenly, we've got a Tampa Bay-Washington World Series.

Which would send a whole pile of TV execs screaming into the night.

And who wouldn't want to see that?