It's a no-hitter for Max Scherzer

Six days ago, Max Scherzer's bid for perfection was ruined on a broken-bat bloop single in the seventh inning. Scherzer, in the proverbial zone, carried his dominant swagger into this afternoon where he fell one strike shy of perfect game before finishing off his first career no-hitter in the Nationals' 6-0 win over the Pirates.

"Let's go. Let's get on the mound, I'm coming after you," said Scherzer on his mindset entering the ninth inning.

Scherzer had thrown just 92 pitches entering the final frame, having whiffed 10 Pirates on an array of blazing fastballs, filthy sliders and baffling changeups.

A sellout crowd of 41,104 rose to its feet in hopes of witnessing history.

Anthony Rendon made a nice running catch on a foul pop-up from Pittsburgh's Gregory Polanco to start the ninth. Jordy Mercer followed with a liner that Denard Span corralled easily. Pirates manager Clint Hurdle then sent Jose Tabata in to pinch-hit as their last chance.

Scherzer quickly jumped ahead of Tabata 0-2, leaving the pitcher on the doorstep of becoming the 24th pitcher to throw a perfect game in Major League Baseball history. But a fastball and a slider missed, evening the count at 2-2, and then Tabata fouled off three straight pitches. That's when Scherzer went back to his strikeout slider. This time, it backed up on him and stayed inside, catching Tabata on his left elbow. It appeared as though Tabata made no attempt to get out of the way of the 86 mph breaking ball, almost leaning into it.

The entire ballpark collectively groaned. In right field, Bryce Harper dropped into a squat in disbelief.

"I wanted to cry, to be honest with you. To be part of a perfect game would've been awesome," Harper said.

Meanwhile, Scherzer, the intense competitor, wasted no time refocusing after the disappointing interruption of history.

"It probably took two seconds," Scherzer said. "I realized I lost the perfect game. You just move on. Finish this thing out."

That's exactly what he did, getting Josh Harrison to lift a flyball to Michael A. Taylor for the final out and securing baseball immortality for Scherzer. Wilson Ramos ran to Scherzer, exchanging several high-fives before the rest of the Nationals joined the party with their ace.

"Cloud nine," Scherzer said. "When you can celebrate with your teammates on just a major accomplishment, there's nothing better. And when everybody wants to celebrate with you, dump the Gatorade, pour the chocolate syrup. I think, how many bottles did we have? It felt like we had 3 bottles."

After MASN's Dan Kolko noted there were six, Scherzer said, "Six bottles? Dear God. I thought it was three. All right, so I had six bottles of chocolate syrup all over me. I mean, that's just a great feeling. I can't describe it. It's a cloud nine moment."

Scherzer won the 2013 American League Cy Young and has pitched in 12 postseason games, including one World Series start. But this trumps them all.

"It's definitely at the top," Scherzer said. "My last two starts, this is some of the best baseball I've thrown, best pitching I've done. I just feel like I'm executing all of my pitches. I just continue to keep getting better."

Get better is scary. The Nationals went all-in and signed Scherzer to a behemoth seven-year, $210 million contract this offseason. Scherzer's 1.76 ERA is the best in baseball, and his 123 strikeouts are the most in the majors.

"He's as good as advertised every time he goes out there." Harper said. "He's worth every penny he gets."

Harper, whose start was a surprise, mashed his 23rd homer of the season to lead off the fourth. Ten of Harper's home runs have come in games that Scherzer has started.

"I told him, 'You keep pitching like that, I'll keep hitting homers,'" Harper said.

The Nats gave Scherzer some breathing room with a four-run sixth inning. That was more than enough for Scherzer.

"I felt like I was able to get some rest, then coming out for the seventh, you hear the crowd going nuts," Scherzer said. "Everyone starts getting on their feet, starts cheering for all those two-strike counts. I'm telling you, that just pumps me up on the mound, the louder they get, the more I want to do it, and I was just able to get down there and get nasty and just find a way to finish it out."

The unfortunate moment with Tabata leaves Scherzer as just the second pitcher in Major League Baseball history to lose a perfect game after 8 2/3 innings on a hit batter. The New York Giants George Wiltse was the first in 1908.

It didn't matter much for Scherzer, whose jersey and cap are likely to be the first covered in chocolate on display in Cooperstown.

"That's awesome," Scherzer said. "That just shows you how much fun we're having as a team. That's the stuff that brings us together and when you have it together as a team, there's nothing better."