After Cardinals reliever Andrew Miller retired all three Nationals he faced in the bottom of the eighth inning, Daniel Hudson returned to the mound to pitch a perfect ninth. On the 94th birthday of Ted Lerner, who had served as managing principal owner of the Nationals from 2006 to 2018, the Nationals won 7–4 to sweep the 2019 NLCS and win the first National League pennant in the history of both the Montreal-Washington franchise and Washington, D.C., as well as Washington, D.C.′s first MLB league championship of any kind since the original Washington Senators won the American League pennant in 1933. The Nationals advanced to the World Series for the first time in Montreal-Washington franchise history, and a Washington, D.C., MLB team earned a World Series berth for the first time since the original Senators reached the Series in 1933. Outscoring the Cardinals 20–6 in the NLCS, the 2019 Nationals became only the fourth team in MLB history to reach the World Series after falling to 12 games below .500 during the regular season. Since hitting that low point with a record of 19–31 on May 23, they had posted the best record in MLB – 82–40, a .672 winning percentage – through the final game of the NLCS.