#Nats cruise to a 6-1 win over the Cubs on the arm of Scherzer and the legs of Trea!

Max Scherzer got run-support tonight and cruised to a 6-1 win buoyed by 4 stolen bases by Trea Turner that absolutely wreaked havoc all night against Jake Arrieta in the battle of the Cy Young pitchers.

The Nationals had 9 hits to go with 7 walks tonight to put up the 6 runs. With 16 baserunners you would hope to score more than 6 runs, but Bryce Harper left 6 men on base and Ryan Zimmerman left 4 men on base. Trea Turner manufactured 2 runs as he stole 3rd base twice tonight. Michael Taylor added 2 RBIs as he continues to make an impact in almost every game recently.

After 6 innings tonight, Max Scherzer headed to the showers on a 93 pitch count which was good to see. The bullpen finished with a scoreless 3 innings to finish this one up.

“[Scherzer] didn’t have much in the tank tonight,” Dusty Baker commented. Mike [Maddux] said he didn’t warm-up very good in the bullpen. Early in the game he was off but he found a way to go 6 [innings] which was big…especially after the fact he threw 120 pitches in his last start…I told him ‘hey man I don’t want to hurt you’…But he just didn’t have much in the tank tonight.”

Max Scherzer showed what he can do without his best stuff. It did cause him to get into some long at-bats which pushed his pitch count. Sometimes you win when you don’t have your best stuff which evens out when you lose when you have your best stuff as we saw 6 days ago. Scherzer’s consecutive strikeout streak where he has had 10 K’s or more ended tonight.

Trea Turner took the MLB lead for stolen bases tonight with his 32nd steal of the season to push one ahead of Billy Hamilton. Trea and his fiancée Kristen publicly announced their engagement this afternoon on social media. Congratulations to the Turner and Harabedian families.

https://twitter.com/kdharabedian/status/879751472875003905

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