SAN DIEGO – The ball fluttered into right field, and the 0 beneath the San Diego Padres hit column turned into a 1. Jordan Zimmermann stood on the mound and buried any disappointment beneath an unflinching countenance. All he did was stand on the mound and wait for another ball so he could throw it again. The single, with one out in the sixth inning, had busted his Zimmermann’s bid for a perfect game. Nothing stopped him from terrorizing the poor souls who stepped in the batter’s box at Petco Park.
The Washington Nationals’ recent run of preposterous starting pitching continued Sunday afternoon with Zimmermann’s masterpiece in a 6-0 victory over the defenseless Padres. Zimmermann retired the first 16 batters he faced, struck out 12 and walked none, finishing with a two-hit shutout.
The Nationals offense provided 13 hits and an early torrent of runs, but Zimmermann dominated as the Nationals took the series from the punchless Padres and readied for a showdown with the powerhouse Giants in San Francisco. He threw 83 strikes in 114 pitches, moving only once to a three-ball count. The only hits he allowed came when Alexi Amarista flared a single to right and Seth Smith hit a liner to right that Jayson Werth played into a triple.
Zimmermann submitted the best outing from a Nationals starter this season, which meant beating stiff competition, most of it recently. In three of their past five games, the Nationals’ starter has struck out 11 and walked none. Over their past six games, Nationals starters have walked one and struck out 44.
Zimmermann rendered recent worry about his performance moot. In May, Zimmermann posted a 5.06 ERA and yielded a .342 batting average against. In his first two starts of June, Zimmermann has allowed seven hits and one walk over 17 shutout innings.
From Sunday afternoon’s first batter, Zimmermann located pitches with dazzling precision. He peppered the strike zone, and nailed spots outside of it when he wanted a hitter to flail at a ball.
Once he got two strikes on leadoff hitter Everth Cabrera, he rifled a 93-mph fastball above the strike zone, where Cabrera had chased pitches all season. He swung again, and whiffed, for strike three. Zimmermann struck out the second hitter, freezing Smith with a 95-mph fastball on the outside molecule of the plate.
Zimmermann navigated the Padres lineup mostly with his fastball, but when he wanted it, he had total control of his off-speed array – he froze cleanup hitter Chase Headley with a curveball to lead off the second. When Zimmermann hurled a 93-mph fastball past Yasmani Grandal to end the fifth inning, he had retired all 15 batters he had faced, throwing 45 of his 60 pitches for strikes.
Cameron Maybin popped to right, and Amarista, a No. 8 hitter batting .196 to start the day, walked to the plate with one out. The count ran to 2-2, and Zimmermann zipped a 94-mph fastball over the inside corner, a pitch just as precise as the first 66 he had thrown to that point. But Amarista whipped his bat quickly enough to line it softly over Adam LaRoche’s head and into right field.
Having allowed his first base runner 11 outs shy of a perfect game, Zimmermann regrouped. He struck out pinch hitter Tommy Medica with a high-and-inside fastball, and he dispatched Cabrera swinging at one of the few change-ups he used all game.
Zimmermann may or may not have been perturbed. Last year, in an effort to teach staff ace Stephen Strasburg a lesson in proper expectation, Nationals pitching coach Steve McCatty sat Zimmermann and Strasburg down. He asked Strasburg his goal for every outing.
“To throw a no-hitter,” Strasburg replied.
McCatty turned to Zimmermann.
“Do you try to throw a no-hitter?” he asked.
“The way I look at it, I give up a hit an inning on average,” Zimmermann replied. “If they don’t get a hit in the first inning, it’s probably going to come in the second inning.”
Sunday, Ian Desmond helped Zimmermann’s bid at a perfect game last as long as it did. In the third inning, Maybin, a speedy runner, chopped a ball toward shortstop. Desmond charged, stabbed the ball with his bare hand and, on the run and in one fluid motion, snapped a throw to first base. It arrived in LaRoche’s mitt a tick before Maybin hit the base.
In the fourth, Cabrera led off with a grounder in the hole, to Desmond’s backhand. Desmond shuffled to his left, made the stop and fired a quick-trigger, one-hop throw to LaRoche with time to spare.
The Nationals offense allowed Zimmermann to pitch with a lead all day. Denard Span led off with a hustle double – his liner bounced in the infield dirt, but he took advantage of the Padres’ outfield shifting him to the opposite field and bolted for second. Once there, Span stole third base. He scored on Kevin Frandsen’s RBI single to shortstop.
The Nationals’ one-run lead expanded rapidly against left-handed Eric Stults. One day after he crushed a two-run homer, Desmond blasted another, this time just to left of dead center. His 13th homer, the most of any shortstop other than Troy Tulowitzki, sent the Nationals ahead, 3-0.
The Nationals knocked out Stults in the third inning after LaRoche knocked in a run with the Nationals’ third straight single. Danny Espinosa poked one of his three hits into right field for a two-RBI single, sending them ahead 6-0 in the third.
The Nationals’ bats quieted the remainder of the afternoon, but Zimmermann already owned far more support than he required.
