Nats complete sweep of Cards

Nats complete sweep of Cards

St. Louis dips below .500 mark

MLB.com ST. LOUIS — St. Louis native Max Scherzer dazzled in his homecoming to help the Nationals wrap up a sweep of the Cardinals with a 6-1 victory on Sunday. It was behind the strength of its starting staff — which limited St.

Louis to three runs in 20 innings -that Washington became the first visiting team to complete a threegame sweep at Busch Stadium since June 2013.

Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez went toe-to-toe with Scherzer through five scoreless innings. In fact, it was Scherzer who had the lone hit Martinez allowed during that stretch. But Martinez blinked in the sixth. Jose Lobaton turned a leadoff single into the game's first run by advancing on a bunt and scoring on a single to center by Matt den Dekker.

The Nationals then piled on in the seventh, scoring three times during a two-pitch span in which Clint Robinson and Danny Espinosa hit back-to-back home runs a combined 839 feet. The Nationals outhomered the Cardinals, 6-1, in the series and tallied 10 of their 17 series runs off the long ball.

The Cardinals were never able to advance a runner into scoring position against Scherzer, who limited the club to four singles in seven innings.

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED Return to form: Oddly enough, as the Nationals pitchers posted the second-best ERA in baseball to start the season, Scherzer owned the highest ERA on the staff before his start. His outing Sunday was back to his usual form, though, throwing seven scoreless innings with a season-high nine strikeouts.

Cards bests Harper: Martinez struck out a season-high eight, including reigning Most Valuable Player Bryce Harper three times.

Harper, who had taken one called third strike in April, did so against Martinez in each of his first two at-bats — first on a 97-mph fastball, then an 87-mph breaking ball. Harper struck out once more against Martinez and then again versus Seung Hwan Oh to complete his first four-strikeout game since 2012.

Jenifer Langosch has covered the Cardinals for MLB.com since 2012, and previously covered the Pirates from 2007-11. Read her blog, By Gosh, It's Langosch, follow her on Twitter @LangoschMLB, like her Facebook page Jenifer Langosch for Cardinals.com and listen to her podcast.

Jamal Collier covers the Nationals for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jamalcollier.

By Jenifer Langosch and Jamal Collier