Bryce Harper ignites offense in Nats' fourth straight win

In a season where the legend of Bryce Harper has become reality, the young slugger continues to reach new milestones. Harper's third-inning two-run homer was the 500th hit of his career and, after doubling to start the fifth, the 22-year-old scored his 100th run this year as the Nationals pounded the Braves 8-2.

The Mets shut out the Marlins 7-0 to maintain their five-game lead in the National League East. New York travels to D.C. for an important three-game series beginning Monday.

Harper quickly fell behind 0-2 in his second at-bat against Braves right-hander Shelby Miller. But Harper battled back, fouling off four pitches, and eventually working the count full before launching his 33rd homer to left-center. The two-run shot extended the Nats lead to 4-0 as Harper's career-high for home runs in a single season continues climbing.

"That Harper at-bat was really the key of the game, I think," said Jayson Werth, who doubled and scored in the third. "Obviously, the home run at the end was probably the highlight of it. He kept fouling off pitches and gave himself a chance.

"Sometimes, in those at-bats, there might be a pitch or a swing that wasn't a good swing. But it was a good pitch, so you fouled it off just to give yourself some life. Sometimes that can go a long way. That was a big at-bat. That kind of got us going and set the tone."

After the Nats added two more runs in the fourth, Harper drilled a leadoff double to right-center in the fifth. As he has done for the past month, Ryan Zimmerman followed with a base knock to right, bringing Harper racing to the plate for his 100th run, the most he has scored in a single season.

Harper smacked another double in the sixth, advancing Rendon to third, and he scored Nationals' sixth run.

Prior to tonight, Harper scuffled against Miller, going 3-for-14 (.214) with no homers and three strikeouts. It looked like those difficulties would carry over into tonight when Miller whiffed Harper on three straight fastballs in the first. But Harper responded with the home run in the marathon at-bat in the third as well as the two-bagger in fifth.

"I mean, (Miller) kind of owns me," Harper said. "Or he has in the past. I've seen him pretty well more and more I guess, but he's dang good out there. I tip my cap to him a lot because he's got that heater and he uses it a lot. I wasn't sure. I was trying to get a pitch in the zone to where I could do something with it. Got a pitch that I could hit and put it in the seats."

Miller surrendered a season-high seven runs before hitting the showers after just 4 1/3 innings. The talented 24-year-old has now sunk to 0-12 in his last 20 starts.

"I think it's finally going to the point where we're winning ballgames against the teams we should be winning ballgames against," Harper said. "If you look at the Phillies or the Reds or some of the least-winning teams, we haven't done so hot against them this year. That's a team that we need to beat and we need to play well against, especially going in against a guy like Shelby. He's so good out there. So we try to fight and claw every time we can. We did what we did tonight and Gio (Gonzalez) took us to the top."

Gonzalez turned in one of his better performances of the year, carrying a no-hitter into the sixth inning. He ended up allowing two hits with four walks and a season-high 10 strikeouts over six frames to claim his 10th win of the season. After the game, the superlatives were flying from the left-hander about the amazing season-long performance from Harper.

"He's been lightning in a bottle, the guy's amazing," Gonzalez said. "It's incredible to see him go out there and play the game he plays. It's almost like he's got the cheat codes to a baseball game. He's that guy that's right on point with everything he's doing.

"The guy is on fire. Even a fire extinguisher can't take him out. I think he's scorching. He's fun to watch. For the next couple of years and so on he's going to be fun to watch."

Harper has torched the Braves over the first three games of the series, going 5-for-7 (.714) with two homers, two doubles, four RBIs, six walks and eight runs scored while compiling a 2.846 OPS.

The Nationals will look for Harper to help finish off a sweep on Sunday to set up a Labor Day showdown with the Mets.