WASHINGTON -- Zack Greinke is piling up the zeros.
Greinke extended his scoreless streak to 43 2/3 innings, striking a season-high 11 through the eighth and leading the Los Angeles Dodgers over the Washington Nationals 5-0 on Sunday.
Greinke's string is the longest in the majors since Orel Hershiser set the major-league record of 59 shutout innings in 1988 with the Dodgers.
"I don't think about it at all," Greinke said. "I'm just not making a bunch of mistakes and making good pitches."
Greinke started the All-Star Game last Tuesday night and gave up a leadoff home run to Mike Trout, but that run doesn't count in the regular-season statistics.
Greinke's next start is scheduled for the coming weekend at the New York Mets.
Only Hershisher and Hall of Famers Don Drysdale (58) and Bob Gibson (47) have had longer scoreless spans than Greinke during the post-1960 expansion era. Los Angeles teammate Clayton Kershaw threw 41 shutout innings last year.
Greinke (9-2) leads the major leagues with a 1.30 ERA. He scattered 3 singles, walked 1 and threw 119 pitches in 8 innings. He also picked a runner off first base.
"Everything but the curveball was working today, and [that] was all right," he said.
It was his sixth consecutive scoreless start, all of them lasting at least six innings.
Max Scherzer (10-8) gave up one run in six innings. He left with the loss, and a 2.09 ERA, after the Dodgers won the matchup of National League division leaders.
Greinke said he didn't focus on who was pitching against him.
"I stopped thinking about [such duels] a long time ago," he said. "Whenever I tried to do more, the results would be worse."
"It's hard to be better than this," Los Angeles Manager Don Mattingly said.
Washington first baseman Clint Robinson said facing Kershaw, a three-time Cy Young winner, and Greinke in less than 24 hours wasn't a lot of fun. Kershaw and Greinke combined to strike out 25 Nationals in 16 innings.
"With those guys, you just have to get them in the strike zone and then, you know, put a good swing on it and hope something good happens," Robinson said. "You can't really go up there sitting on one particular pitch.
Scherzer's wild pitch in the fourth gave the Dodgers their first run.
Andre Ethier led off with a double, moved up on Yasmani Grandal's sacrifice and scored with two outs on Scherzer's wild pitch.
Los Angeles broke away with four runs in the ninth off Blake Treinen. Ethier and A.J. Ellis had RBI singles, and Yasiel Puig added a two-run single.
Sports on 07/20/2015