HOUSTON — The number could still haunt the Washington Nationals, could still be chiseled on their tombstone if the Houston Astros recover and win this World Series. It is 5.66, the Nationals’ bullpen earned run average in the regular season. No playoff team in major league history has ever had an E.R.A. so high.

“It’s a gutty group of guys down there, man,” Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo said late Tuesday night, after four of those guys preserved a 5-4 victory in Game 1 at Minute Maid Park. “They’re sick and tired of hearing about it, I know that much.”

Of course, regular-season numbers mean nothing in late October, when teams often change the composition and usage of their bullpens. For the Nationals, the ghastly E.R.A. is mainly a scar now, a symbol of trauma for the fans, perhaps, but of opportunity for the pitchers. Before the playoffs, they rallied around the chance to start over.

“We talked as a group heading into the final homestand of the season that we wanted to change the narrative,” said Sean Doolittle, who saved Game 1 by retiring all four hitters he faced. “We were well aware of how we’d kind of stumbled as a group over the course of the season and what the numbers said.