Strasburg keeps it rolling, tosses eight scoreless in 4-1 win

Stephen Strasburg will never say it publicly, but it's tough to imagine the right-hander doesn't see Max Scherzer dominate one night and not want to try to at least duplicate it 24 hours later.

Whether he says it or not, Strasburg let his performance speak for itself tonight. On the heels of Scherzer's two-hit shutout Monday, the Nationals' second staff ace tossed eight scoreless innings of three-hit ball tonight, leading his team to a 4-1 victory over the Braves that was every bit as impressive as the series opener.

Strasburg may not have gone the distance - his pitch count stood at 103 at the end of the eighth - but he was no less effective than Scherzer was the previous night. He scattered three hits and two walks over his evening and rarely found himself in any serious trouble.

Sammy Solís and Ryan Madson combined to pitch the ninth, with Madson surrendering a two-out RBI double to Dansby Swanson but retiring the potential tying run in Ryan Flaherty and thus getting credit for his first save of the season.

And so just when it looked like they were teetering on the brink of something disastrous, the Nationals turned to their co-aces and got 17 combined innings of scoreless baseball against a division rival, catapulting them back over the .500 mark, with a chance at a series sweep Wednesday afternoon.

As they did for Scherzer on Monday, the Nationals handed Strasburg a quick 2-0 lead, even with leadoff man Adam Eaton a late scratch due to what the club termed a bone bruise in his left ankle. It was the ninth time in 11 games this season they scored in the first inning. The only surprise about this one: The clutch hit came from Ryan Zimmerman.

Batting .097 and bumped out of the cleanup spot for the first time, Zimmerman nonetheless found himself at the plate with two on and two out. And he finally delivered, sending a line drive into shallow center field that scooted past a diving Ender Inciarte and rolled all the way to the wall.

As Brian Goodwin and Bryce Harper raced home with the first runs of the evening, Zimmerman scampered all the way to third base without drawing a throw. He held out his arms, looked to the heavens and smiled a la Andy Dufresne, a free man at long last after crawling through 10 games' worth of the foulest smelling you-know-what known to a ballplayer and coming out clean on the other side.

Handed that two-run lead, Strasburg went to work making sure his teammates wouldn't need to tack on any more later. He surrendered a first-inning double to Ozzie Albies but then picked him off trying to steal third before he had begun his delivery to the plate. He allowed a single to Dansby Swanson and advanced him to second in the second inning but escaped that jam without any more damage.

Strasburg then went on a run in which he retired 12 in a row, six via strikeout. Like Scherzer, he didn't walk a batter, forcing the Braves to beat him without any help on his part. And when he completed the seventh with his pitch count at a mere 83, the possibility of a second straight complete game loomed tantalizingly in the distance.

The Nationals helped the cause by adding two insurance runs over the course of the game. Goodwin's two-out bloop single to center in the fourth brought home Wilmer Difo, who also scored in the sixth when reliever Shane Carle misfired after fielding a sacrifice bunt attempt.