Houston, TX – Michael Morse homered twice, Jordan Zimmermann tossed six scoreless innings, and the Nationals completed a four-game sweep of the Astros with a 5-0 win on Thursday.
Morse also had a sacrifice fly and extended his career-high and major league- leading hit streak to 18 games. Marlins shortstop Jose Reyes entered Thursday with a 26-game hit streak but he went 0-for-4 against the Mets, allowing Morse to take over the top spot.
Zimmermann (9-6) gave up just three hits, tied a career-high with 11 strikeouts and did not walk a batter. He has won six straight decisions.
"Jordan has been, probably, consistently as good as anybody in the league, no question about it," said Nationals manager Davey Johnson. "I'm very comfortable when I watch him because he's in attack mode. He's a bear out there."
Ryan Zimmerman and Adam LaRoche both added an RBI for the NL East-leading Nationals, who have won eight of their last nine games.
Lucas Harrell (9-8) took the loss, allowing two runs on five hits with two walks and five strikeouts over five innings.
"Frustrating is probably the key word," said Harrell. "I felt like I threw a lot of good pitches that were pretty close. Things didn't go my way."
Zimmermann, who has given up one earned run or less in nine of 12 road starts this season, didn't let a runner advance past second base on Thursday. He worked around doubles by Brett Wallace and Steve Pearce, in the second and fourth, respectively and recorded five strikeouts over his final two frames.
Michael Gonzalez, Sean Burnett and Drew Storen each tossed a scoreless inning of relief to seal the shutout.
Morse notched his fourth career mutli-homer game, belting solo shots in both the sixth and eighth innings.
He added a sac fly in the fourth, following LaRoche's RBI single for a 2-0 lead.
Zimmerman capped the scoring with a sac fly in the ninth, snapping Wesley Wright's 11 2/3 scoreless innings streak in the process.
Game Notes
Morse's hit streak is the longest by a Nationals player since Zimmerman had a hit in 19 straight games from July 22-August 11, 2011...Zimmerman improved to 1-2 in four career starts against the Astros...Wallace tied a career high with three hits...Earlier Thursday, the Astros acquired infielder Tyler Green from the Cardinals in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations.
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