clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

#WERTHQUAKE: Jayson Werth's Walk-Off HR In Nationals Park, One Year Later...

On October 11, 2012 at approximately 7:02 pm EDT, Jayson Werth hit a walk-off home run into the left field bullpen in Nationals Park, sending the sold out and then some crowd in the nation's capital into a frenzy. One year later, we look back...

By Patrick Reddington
Rob Carr

October 11, 2012: Nationals Park was louder than it had ever been before. An NLDS Game 4 crowd of 44,392 stood screaming through a 13-pitch, ninth inning at bat between Washington Nationals' right fielder Jayson Werth and St. Louis Cardinals' reliever Lance Lynn. The series was 2-1 in the Cardinals' favor. The Nats and Cards were tied at 1-1 after eight and a half innings in the nation's capital. Werth worked the count full in the first at bat of the inning, taking a close 2-2 curve that home plate umpire Jim Joyce called ball three. "I think he threw a hook, 2-2 to get to 3-2 and I figured from then on I wasn't going to get off the heater," Werth said, "fouled a couple more off and finally got one to hit."

"I didn't hear a thing," Werth told reporters. "It was pretty quiet to me." - Jayson Werth on walk-off home run

The one Werth got to hit was the 13th pitch of the at bat. "It was a fastball," Werth said after the game. "He's got a good fastball. Like I said -- but after that 2-2 hook, it was pretty close. After that I was on the heater." Werth crushed it, sending a no-doubter to left field and into the visiting team's bullpen for a walk-off winner. 2-1 Nationals. The crowd in the nation's capital, which had been hanging on every pitch, erupted in a deafening roar that was heard for blocks around Nationals Park. Werth blocked it all out.

"I didn't hear a thing," he told reporters after forcing the series to a fifth game. "It was pretty quiet to me."


Werth was thrilled with the atmosphere he'd helped create over the first two seasons of his seven-year deal. "The last two games were -- the place was packed. I don't think it -- it hasn't been packed. We've sold out, but it wasn't like it was. You know, a lot of the times, it's a little mix of some of our fans and some of the other team's fans. Today, it seemed like -- the last two days, it was all our fans. Hopefully they will show up again tomorrow and we'll do it again."

"He's tough," Werth said. "We've faced him a lot over September and in the series. So I knew what he had."    - Jayson Werth vs Cards' reliever Lance Lynn

Nationals fans know what happened the next day, of course. But no one in the nation's capital will forget the so-called #WERTHQUAKE that ended Game 4. So where were you when Jayson Werth's walk-off won it, a year ago today? Were you watching on tv? Listening? In Nationals Park? At 7:02 PM EDT on October 11th, Jayson Werth came through with what was and remains the biggest hit in the history of the third team to call the nation's capital home... Where were you?

• Read the FBB postgame story from last October:

More from Federal Baseball:

More From Federal Baseball