WASHINGTON _ The offense has done just enough for the Padres to win more games than they have lost.
Some nicely timed home runs, more than anything, have carried them.
But it troubles them that they aren't hitting all that well, aren't getting on base nearly enough.
The team that has finished at the bottom of the major leagues in on-base percentage five years running is so far challenging for that dubious title again.
"If we want to be great, we've got to drive that on-base percentage up," manager Andy Green said before Friday's game. "It's going to be a tough challenge today. The guy they've got going for them doesn't usually allow a lot of people on base. As long as we grind him hard and force him to work for everything he gets, we'll be in a good spot by the end of the game."
The Padres did finally get to Nationals starter Max Scherzer, driving him from the game after seven innings, and they won it, 4-3, when Hunter Renfroe homered off Sean Doolittle in the ninth.
Padres starter Matt Strahm allowed two runs on four hits and struck out eight in six innings. Trey Wingenter pitched a perfect seventh. Craig Stammen (3-1) allowed a game-tying homer in the eighth before Kirby Yates left the bases loaded in recording his major league-leading 13th save.
The Padres' fourth straight victory was among the most satisfying of their 15 wins in 26 games this season, as it came on a night in which it appeared they would be dominated.
As Green left the visitors' dugout at National Park amidst the remnants of an afternoon thunderstorm, he said, "He is 100 percent still Max Scherzer."
Indeed.
The 34-year-old right-hander, making the sixth start of his 12th major league season, retired the first 13 Padres he faced. And even after Eric Hosmer's one-out home run in the fifth inning, Scherzer cruised for a while.
His strikeout of Manuel Margot to start the sixth inning was the 2,500th of his career and seventh of the game. He got 2,501 and 2,502 to end the sixth inning and would have 10 strikeouts before his night was finished.
The Padres, who for six innings didn't do much of the grinding their manager desired, finally forced Scherzer to work out of the stretch when Wil Myers led off the seventh with a stand-up double.
Manny Machado reached out to slap a single bouncing up the middle that scored Myers and tied the game 2-2.
That inning built to great promise but crashed in a disappointing flurry.
After Franmil Reyes reached on a fielder's choice, Eric Hosmer lined a single down the left-field line that sent Reyes to third. Needing only a fly ball to score, Ian Kinsler got ahead 3-0 against Scherzer before striking out on the eighth pitch of an at-bat, which also ended with Nationals catcher Yan Gomes picking off Reyes at third base.
Gomes figured prominently the next inning, as well, as the Padres took a 3-2 lead the next inning with help from San Diego State alumnus Ty France's one-out pinch-hit single in his first major league plate appearance.
Austin Hedges walked to start the eighth, went to second on France's single through the left side and to third on Fernando Tatis' fielder's choice grounder. On an inside pitch that bounced off Gomes' glove and bounced to the wall, Hedges sprinted home.
The lead was short-lived.
Carter Kieboom, the Nationals' top prospect, was making his major league debut and got his first hit by slamming a 1-1 slider from Stammen just over the center-field fence.
After Doolittle got Machado looking to start the ninth, Renfroe came up for the first time after replacing Franmil Reyes in right field in the previous inning.
After fouling off three straight fastballs, Renfroe reached well outside the zone to tag a split-finger fastball to left-center field.
Yates allowed a hit and two walks in the bottom of the inning but struck out Kieboom to end the game.
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