Gap widens after Nats shut out for second straight night

The reeling Nationals offense wasted a brilliant performance from Jordan Zimmermann, falling to the Dodgers 3-0.

Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw retired the first 16 Nationals, taking a perfect game into the sixth before Michael A. Taylor ripped a one-out double over Joc Pederson's head in center. But Kershaw calmly coaxed two groundouts from Zimmermann and Yunel Escobar to strand Taylor.

Anthony Rendon smoked a leadoff single in the seventh and Kershaw responded by fanning Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman and Jayson Werth to end the inning.

Taylor added another single with two outs in the eighth, but Danny Espinosa grounded out softly to shortstop Kike Hernandez. That's all the Nationals could muster against Kershaw, who struck out eight over eight scoreless innings. Closer Kenley Jansen finished off the Nats in the ninth, whiffing Harper to end the game.

Kershaw has shut out the Nats over 16 innings in two wins this year, striking out 22 without a walk, while yielding just six hits.

Zimmermann went toe-to-toe with Kershaw, surrendering only one run on two hits with one walk and a season-high nine strikeouts.

The lone run against Zimmermann came after a leadoff walk to Pederson in the third. After advancing to second on weak groundout from Jose Peraza, Pederson scored when Carl Crawford sliced a two-out single down the left field line. Crawford seemed to be surprised by the result as he was slow out of the box and ended up on first on a hit that should've easily left him at second.

"Strange play on the ball that Crawford hit," Nationals manager Matt Williams explained to reporters. "They called a balk. So Crawford swung at it and hit it down the line and had no idea where it went. The rule they teach young players is if they call a balk, go ahead and swing. It's a free swing. And he was able to get one down the line for their first one."

Zimmermann retired the next 13 batters he faced, striking out the side in the seventh before exiting. He takes the hard luck loss to fall to 8-8 on the year.

"It's a function of who you're facing sometimes, too," Williams told reporters. "Clayton was pretty good tonight, again. (Zimmermann) gave us chance, kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win."

The Dodgers padded their lead in the eighth when right-hander Drew Storen hit Pederson. Pinch-hitter Andre Ethier followed with a drive to the right field corner. Pederson was set to stop at third and Ethier at second until Rendon's relay throw sailed wildly into the seats up the third base line. Both Pederson and Ethier scored on the error as Storen has now allowed eight earned runs in his last three appearances.

With the Mets beating the Rockies for the third straight night, the Nationals dropped 3 1/2 games out of the race for the National League East crown. That's the furthest the Nats have been out of first place since way back on May 10.

Washington was blanked in back-to-back games for the first time this year and shut out for the eighth time overall. The lengthy road trip moves to San Francisco where Stephen Strasburg takes the hill Thursday night.

"We start tomorrow," Williams said to reporters. "We'll get prepared to play the Giants and go from there. We ran into a couple of pretty good pitchers the last two days that can do that to a lot of teams. So we have to bounce from that and get ready for (Thursday)."