Oct 4, 2014; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Nationals third baseman(6) hits a single in the eighth inning against the San Francisco Giants in game two of the 2014 NLDS playoff baseball game at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit: H. Darr Beiser-USA TODAY Sports

To suggest that Saturday’s marathon 18-inning game wasn’t an excruciating loss would be silly. Instead of embracing the brilliance of Jordan Zimmermann and a split heading to San Francisco the Nationals (and fans) are left to wonder what if. One more out, be it from Zimmermann or Drew Storen. A loss hurts, and with Madison Bumgarner on the hill for the Giants in a must-win Game 3, the Nats are going to have to earn their way back to D.C. The path to greatness isn’t always smooth and unimpeded.

Last night, despite its disappointing end, wasn’t all bleak and dreary for the first half of the postseason record-tying 18-innings (or through the record 6 hour and 23 minute game, of which I sat through with heart racing every second). No. By the time Zimmermann was walking to the mound in an attempt to close out his three-hit shutout, Anthony Rendon had made a place in Washington professional baseball history. At that time, Rendon was 4-for-4 (he finished 4-for-7 with a walk), which made him just the second player from a D.C. Major League baseball team to record four hits in a single postseason game.

Rendon joined Goose Goslin in D.C. lore, and Goslin accomplished his outing 90-years ago, way back in Game 4 of the 1924 World Series. Goslin, oddly enough, also went 4-for-4 against the Giants who were then residing in New York.

Up until that point, Rendon had also driven in the game’s lone run and stolen a base, making him the lone Nats offensive weapon. He’d recorded four of the team’s seven hits, and he nearly ended the game in the 15th when his drive to deep right-center field came within just a few feet of making the night before Tanner Roark’s 28th birthday a party to remember. The wind knocked that ball harmlessly into Gregor Blanco’s mitt.

He became the first player since Albert Pujols and Ryan Theriot on October 4, 2011 to record four plus hits and steal one or more bases in a postseason game, that’s pretty impressive in it’s own right.

If you’re wondering, and I know you are, there have been nine occurrences of a Washington player recording three hits in a game. If you count Tim Raines in 1981, then in Montreal, it makes 10.

So we can bemoan the fact that the Nats lost, and we can wring our hands over what might have been. I like to think of Saturday as the night the world finally saw the Anthony Rendon that we saw all year, the one who goes to all fields and who is about as unflappable a player as you’re ever going to see under the intensity of postseason pressure. For while Asdrubal Cabrera argued his way into an ejection and manager Matt Williams somehow followed his second baseman in a game he had to win, Rendon never once looked like the moment was too much for him. It’s called being a professional.

The Nats lost 2-1, but for 6+ hours, or just slightly longer than re-watching the two Hobbit movies, we had one of the most exciting games in recent memory. I was on the edge of my seat, when I wasn’t pacing, so there’s that.

We wouldn’t have even had that without Rendon.