WASHINGTON _ Just hours after the Padres watched Max Scherzer record a season-high 13 strikeouts, they helped San Diego State product Stephen Strasburg to a personal best.
Strasburg collected 15 strikeouts, a career high, over seven innings in the Washington Nationals' 3-0 shutout victory Saturday. The right-hander became the sixth pitcher ever to strike out at least that many San Diego batters in a game, joining the likes of Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan.
For the fourth time in franchise history, the Padres were victimized by 14 or more strikeouts in consecutive games. Saturday's total of 17 matched a season high.
The Padres' best chance to nick Strasburg came and went in the top of the first. After a single, an error and a walk, the bases were loaded with two outs. Strasburg doused the threat, fanning Austin Hedges on three pitches.
"Sometimes with the best pitchers in the game, if you don't get them in the first three innings, they become harder and harder to get to," Padres manager Andy Green said. "We had our chance there in the first. We didn't take advantage of it."
Padres left-hander Clayton Richard went six innings and allowed three runs. The first was scored by Strasburg himself. The pitcher led off the bottom of the third with a single, advanced to third on a double and came home on a fielder's choice.
In the sixth, Richard surrendered a leadoff double and, with one out, left a 1-2 fastball over the plate. Michael Taylor sent a drive out to left-center, homering for the second time in as many games.
"It's a different game if I execute pitches there," Richard said. "Going into the seventh, eighth, ninth down one run is a lot different than down three. It's disappointing to have not executed there and keep us a little bit closer. We stay in a one-run game, momentum is different, we've got a different attitude. It changes a lot of things."
With the exception of Allen Cordoba, a Rule 5 draftee, every member of the Padres lineup struck out at least once against Strasburg. Like Scherzer on Friday, Strasburg allowed just three hits.
"You're not going to win baseball games punching out that much," Green said. "We've got to find ways to put balls in play. ... You've got to lay off the pitches that are in the dirt. There were plenty of buried pitches from Strasburg that were in the dirt. You tip your cap because he's good and he's attacking weakness in our hitters. As our hitters get better, they'll lay off that pitch and get a pitch back in the strike zone."
Matt Albers fanned Cordoba in the eighth. With two outs in the ninth, Koda Glover struck out Hedges, ending the game.
Through the first two games of their series here, the Padres have struck out 31 times in 18 innings.
"You talk a lot about two-strike approach and finding a 'B' hack where you put the ball in play and you spread out, choke up, whatever it is you have to do to put the ball in play," Green said. "The reality is, guys haven't done that often, and then you're trying to enact that type of an approach against one of the elite pitchers in the game. ... I guarantee you, within every guy in that clubhouse, there's a steadfast desire to hit the ball, put it in play. Sometimes, though, it doesn't come across that easy when you're facing good pitching."
