Nationals’ free fall continues
SAN FRANCISCO — On the day the Giants honored Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal, left-hander Madison Bumgarner gave San Francisco a performance worthy of the high-kicking Dominican.
Bumgarner homered, doubled and struck out 14 while pitching a three-hitter as the Giants beat Washington, 5-0, Sunday, handing the Nationals their sixth straight loss.
Bumgarner joined Marichal as the only San Francisco pitchers to throw a shutout, strike out at least 10 and hit a home run in the same game.
“It’s a pretty big day, he means a lot to the organization,” Bumgarner said. “It’s really neat for the Giants to bring guys like that back. It’s really special.”
Hunter Pence also homered as the playoff-contending Giants finished off a four-game sweep, outscoring the Nationals 28-12.
Washington matched its longest skid of the season. A popular pick before opening day to win the World Series, the Nationals fell below .500 at 58-59. They trail the Mets by 4.5 games in the NL East.
“We’ve played terrible the last 15 or 16 games and we faced one of the best today,” Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman said. “He might be the best in the bigs right now.”
Bumgarner (14-6) held the Nats hitless into the fifth inning. The World Series MVP matched his career high for strikeouts while pitching his first shutout of the year and fourth overall in the regular season.
“He did it all. That’s an impressive outing with how hot it was,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “That was an old-school type game; starter goes nine was fitting. Marichal did it so many times. Bumgarner, that’s back-toback for him.”
Bumgarner has an ERA of 0.71 in the three games since allowing six runs in seven innings to the Texas Rangers. He has 35 strikeouts in 25.1 innings during that span.
“You can always do better,” Bumgarner said. “But this would be tough to beat, the way things are going for me.”
Bumgarner hit an RBI double early and later connected for his fourth home run of the season and 10th of his career.
The big lefty permitted just three singles, and no runner made it past second base.
Joe Ross (3-5) struck out the first four Giants and threw three perfect innings before running into trouble in the fourth.