WASHINGTON— Fans of the Harrisburg Senators know when attending games on City Island, there’s an opportunity to catch future major leaguers on their journey toward the big leagues.
When Major League players return to FNB Field, or any other minor league team, typically it’s to rehab an injury on their way back up.
Washington Nationals star Stephen Strasburg has returned for four starts. Ryan Zimmerman was with Harrisburg this year and Adam Eaton, Anthony Rendon and Matt Adams have only worn Senators’ jerseys for the same reason in recent years.
That was not Michael A. Taylor’s story.
In late June, the Washington Nationals decided to send the veteran outfielder back to Double-A Harrisburg — five years after he had been there on his way up the ladder.
The unheard-of demotion for a 28-year-old with two postseason homers was based more on opportunity and geography than desperation. With the Triple-A team now in California, the Nationals decided to send some of their big league players to Harrisburg to be closer to Nationals Park.
Former Harrisburg hitting coach Troy Gingrich, now the minor league hitting instructor, said Taylor needed regular at-bats. He wasn’t getting that in Washington with the emergence of center fielder Victor Robles, another elite defender who provided more offense than Taylor.
“(Taylor) is one when he gets more consistent at-bats he gets better,” Gingrich said of Taylor.
This season, Michael A. Taylor played 57 games in the Eastern League, batting .248 with nine home runs and 35 RBIs. But the speedy Taylor rejoined the Nationals in September and made the postseason roster, partly because Robles was dealing with a hamstring injury. Taylor made a diving catch in the clinching Game 5 over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the NLDS. Then he hit a homer in Game 2 of the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals to give his team a 1-0 lead.
“The goal is to score first and build from there,” he said.
Now Taylor is headed to the World Series, as the Nationals play Game 1 on the road tonight.
“This is a great ballclub. We have done a good job of focusing on what is in front of us,” Taylor said.
Taylor credited the guidance of Harrisburg manager Matt LeCroy and others for helping him get on track before he returned to Washington. Nationals assistant general manager Doug Harris, a long-time resident of Carlisle, said Senators hitting coach Brian Rupp was also instrumental in getting Taylor to make some slight adjustments at the plate.
“The more you are here in the majors, the more you are comfortable. Just slow it down and play the game,” Taylor said.
A native of Florida, Taylor is one of several Nationals on the World Series roster whose career had taken them to City Island — either as a young minor leaguer or veteran on a rehab assignment.
Both Taylor and Austin Voth opened the season in April as members of the Senators.
Although the right-hander spent most of the season pitching for Triple-A Fresno, he pitched in three games for the Senators this past season,
Zimmerman made a rehab stint of seven games this year and young superstars Robles and Juan Soto have trolled the outfield in Harrisburg.
Soto was with the Senators for only eight games before his promotion to the majors in May 2018. Rendon hit .313 in 33 games for Harrisburg in 2013 – after previously hitting .162 in 21 contests.
But it’s not just players that have impacted the current crop of Nationals.
Nationals pitching coach Paul Menhart held the same post with the Senators in 2012 and 2013 as a roving instructor who has worked with several Washington pitchers, including Strasburg, Voth and reliever Wander Suero, who pitched in Harrisburg for parts of 2015-17.
Menhart became the Nationals pitching coach in early May after Derek Lilliquist was let go.
“As a player, I never really took it all in,” said Menhart, who pitched for three Major League teams but never made the playoffs. “Now as a coach, I am taking it all in.”
“Paul was always preparing himself for this opportunity,” said director of player development Mark Scialabba. “He was our best coach in the minors.”
Gingrich was the Harrisburg hitting coach from 2008-11 and was part of the Western Division title team in 2011.
As a minor league coach and instructor, Gingrich has worked with MVP candidate and third baseman Rendon, left fielder Soto and center fielder Robles, although he downplays his impact.
“They are such great hitters, there is not much to change,” Gingrich said.
By now the baseball world knows the Nationals were 19-31 in late May and had a 0.1 percent of winning the National League title, according to some models.
They became the second team in nearly 100 years to go from 12 games under .500 to 24 games over .500 by the end of the year.
Now the Nationals are the first team from Washington to make the World Series since the Senators in 1933, who lost in five games to the New York Giants. The last World Series title for Washington came in 1924 by the Senators.
“I think it’s been just an amazing year, and I think it’s really been great just because of where we’ve had to come from,” Strasburg said.
And for many of the Nationals, where they came from runs through the field on City Island.