BALTIMORE — Bryce Harper wore jeans and a Las Vegas Golden Knights jersey here late Wednesday night, his eyes glancing at the television in the visiting clubhouse as his hometown hockey team faced the Capitals in the NHL finals.
But the Las Vegas native certainly wasn’t distracted during the game, as teammate Max Scherzer pitched another gem and the Nationals beat the Baltimore Orioles 2-0 to sweep the three-game series at Camden Yards.
Harper, who hit a solo home run in the third, doesn’t need convincing but once again he vouched for the dominance of Scherzer.
The St. Louis native won his eighth straight game while giving up no runs and two hits with 12 strikeouts and one walk in eight innings of work.
“He’s one of the best pitchers in baseball. I can’t say enough about him,” Harper said of Max. “He’s really special.”
The Nationals (32-22) took over first place in the National League East for the first time since April 3 as the Atlanta Braves lost 4-1 to the New York Mets on Wednesday.
There were plenty of other kudos for Scherzer, who lowered his ERA to 1.92 and continues to lead the National League in wins and strikeouts.
“He’s really good. Is anybody having a better year than him?” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said.
“He had a really good fastball tonight,” said Dave Martinez, the Nationals skipper. “I should say a great fastball (at) 96-97 (miles-per-hour). It was over the plate, and the slider was really, really sharp.”
Scherzer now has had a quality start in 10 of his 12 outings.
“My arm action was in the direction I wanted it to,” he said. “That is when I feel really good on the mound.”
He also focused on throwing his fastball to both sides of the plate against the Orioles.
“That was a kind of a point of emphasis the last few days,” he said.
After getting in a jam in the seventh, Scherzer was allowed to head back out for the eighth by Martinez.
“We talked. At that point of the game, we always talk. And I looked at him. I said, ’You know what, you’re dealing. Give us what you’ve got.’ We (gave him) 110, 112 pitches and then we’ll go from there.”
Former University of Virginia standout Sean Doolittle came on in the ninth and got the save, despite allowing two singles. But he got a popup for the final out of the game with a runner on base, after a baserunning blunder by Craig Gentry of the Orioles led to the first out of the ninth.
“He has such a great fastball,” Scherzer said of Doolittle. “He has the ability to pop you up or strike you out. He’s really difficult to hit.”
The Orioles put two runners on base in the ninth when second baseman Wilmer Difo and Harper couldn’t catch a ball in short right field.
“It was a tough play (on the popup that fell),” Martinez said. “But Doolittle, a very smart play, he knew what Gentry was going to try and he did an inside move and got out of the inning” with the pickoff.
The Nationals have won a franchise-record 10 road games in a row and sixth straight overall going into a series that starts Thursday in Atlanta.
It was the first three-game sweep for the Nationals in Baltimore since 2007 and just the second series sweep overall. The game drew an announced crowd of 20,370, many of whom headed for cover when a light rain began to fall in the top of the eighth.
The Orioles have lost five in a row and are 17-39.
Washington has the best road record in the majors at 20-8 and is 21-6 since late April to lead all teams.
“Guys are getting an opportunity to step up and take advantage of it. We are seeing that right now,” Scherzer said of the first 54 games.
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