Washington Nationals 8-2 over Miami Marlins: Max Scherzer solid in series finale

Max Scherzer gave up eight hits, two walks and five earned runs in five innings when he faced Miami in Marlins Park last month, in what ended up a 5-1 loss for Washington.

This afternoon in South Florida, the Nationals' 31-year-old right-hander tossed 6 ⅔ scoreless before he gave up a two-out, two-run blast on a 3-2 change to Justin Bour that ended up in the second deck in right.

That's all he gave up, however, in what ended up an 8-2 win for Scherzer and the Nationals.

Scherzer took the mound this afternoon in the series finale with the Fish with a 1-0 lead courtesy of Ben Revere, who singled to center, stole second, took third on a groundout and scored on a sac fly to put the Nationals up 1-0 early on Adam Conley and the Fish.

Revere made things happen again in the third inning, bunting his way on, moving up on a groundout by Werth, stealing third base and scoring on an infield single by Daniel Murphy after the Marlins put Bryce Harper on with an intentional walk. 2-0.

Anthony Rendon yanked a 1-1 fastball inside from Conley to left to bring Murphy in from second and put the Nationals up 3-0 after three with his 10th double of 2016.

Scherzer retired twelve straight batters between Ichiro Suzuki's leadoff single in the first and Giancarlo Stanton's one-out line drive single in the fifth. He stranded Stanton at second two outs later, to complete 5.0 scoreless on 58 pitches.

Rendon and Wilson Ramos took back-to-back walks from Conley in the sixth and Danny Espinosa drove Rendon in with a single before Revere's third hit of the game brought Ramos and Espinosa around, 6-0.

• Adam Conley's Line: 5.1 IP, 7 J, 6 R, 6 ER, 7 BB, 2 Ks, 106 P, 58 S, 7/2 GO/FO.

Scherzer gave up the only two runs he allowed on a bomb of a blast by Bour in the seventh and came back out for the eighth at 95 pitches, and threw a scoreless, eight pitch frame that left him at 103 pitches overall.

• Max Scherzer's Line: 8.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 8 Ks, 103 P, 76 S, 6/4 GO/FO.

RANDOM/KEY MATCHUP - Max Scherzer vs Giancarlo Stanton: Notorious National-killer Giancarlo Stanton, who had 26 HRs and a .302/.391/.651 line in 82 games and 343 career plate appearances against the Washington Nationals before this afternoon, entered the series finale in the midst of a serious slump.

Miami's 26-year-old slugger was 0 for 7 with six Ks in the series and 0 for his last 18 with 15 strikeouts overall before he struck out on three pitches in his first at bat vs Max Scherzer.

Updated stats: 0 for 8, 7 Ks, 0 for 19, 16 Ks. But still, booing him, Marlins fans?

Stanton snapped his 0 for streak in the fifth, when he fought back from an 0-2 count, working it full and lining a fastball to center for his first hit of the series. Stop booing him now, mmmkay?

Anthony Rendon hit a two-out, two-run triple to right in the ninth to make it 8-2 Nationals. Oliver Perez came on to get the first out of the ninth and Blake Treinen finished the Fish off. 8-2 final. Ballgame.

Nationals now 27-17

• NATS NOTES:

• Washington and Miami have now split their 12 games against one another so far this season, with the Nationals scoring an average of 3.0 runs per game in their wins and the Marlins scoring 3.2 runs average in their six.
• The Nationals trailed the Marlins in the All-time series 113-99 after last night's loss, but in today's Washington-themed "Fun with Arbitrary End Points" segment, the Nats are 43-26 against the Marlins... since 2013 and 52-35 against the Fish since the Florida Marlins became the Miami Marlins in 2012.
• Ichiro Suzuki's 4 for 4 game against the Nationals last night, made him the oldest player to go 4-for-4-or-better since Pete Rose went 5 for 5 in a game as a player/manager with the Reds in 1986.
• Giancarlo Stanton has 26 career home runs against the Nationals, but he's in the midst of a serious slump. Heading into the finale with the Nats, the Marlins' slugger was 0 for 7 with six Ks in the series and 0 for his last 18 with 15 Ks.
• In today's Marlins-themed "Fun with Arbitrary End Points" segment: Miami's center fielder, Marcell Ozuna, is 32 for 79 (.405 AVG) with at least one hit in 19 of his last 20 games, going back to April 30th.
• In a bonus Miami-centric "Fun with Arbitrary End Points" note: Marlins' catcher J.T. Realmuto is 33 for 89 (.371 AVG) with eight doubles, two home runs and 10 runs scored... since April 24. Realmuto leads all MLB catchers in AVG, OBP and total hits over that stretch.
• Daniel Murphy was 2 for 4 last night, connecting for multiple hits in a game for the 21st time in his 42 games played this season.
• Murphy's 21 multi-hit games are the most in the majors so far and he also led the majors with a .390 AVG as the Nationals headed into today's series finale with the Fish.

Nationals now 27-17