Healthy and locked in, Ryan Zimmerman is on a tear

ST. LOUIS - The script seemed to be headed in the same direction as the previous two nights - Nationals blow a late lead only to lose in heartbreaking fashion. But after the Cardinals evened the score in the seventh, Ryan Zimmerman once again stepped up, delivering a double in the eighth to score Anthony Rendon for the eventual game-winning run as the Nationals took the finale 4-3.

"Tonight was vintage Zim," manager Matt Williams said.

The RBI was Zimmerman's third of the night after launching deep solo homers in the fourth and sixth. All three of Zimmerman's extra-base hits on the night broke ties, giving the Nationals the lead.

"The most important thing is the win," Zimmerman said. "I could care less about the home runs and all that stuff as long as we get the win. I had the chance to come through a couple times and fortunately I did."

Zimmerman can downplay it all he wants, but he was a one-man wrecking crew in St. Louis. He homered in all three games of the series, crushing four longballs overall, hit .500 (7-for-14) and drove in a whopping eight runs.

When players get zoned in at the plate for a long stretch, they tend to avoid the topic of how hot they are. Zimmerman continued the superstition late Wednesday night in the Nationals clubhouse.

"I'd rather not talk about it," he said. "I'd rather just come to the field and keep doing the stuff that I've been doing before the game and staying consistent and going out with that approach and not trying to do too much and just hit the ball hard."

Zimmerman dealt with a bothersome bout of plantar fasciitis, robbing him of 40 games in the middle of the season. Since he returned to the Nationals on July 28, Zimmerman has driven in 33 RBIs, most in the National League over that period. Nineteen of those RBIs have come in the last 10 games, where Zimmerman has batted .359 while clubbing seven homers.

"He's up there just swinging the bat as well as we've ever seen him," Max Scherzer said after limiting the Cardinals to two runs over six innings. "It just shows you how much offense he can bring. I mean, he's an RBI guy. He finds ways to get those runs home.

"When he can do this, it just adds length to our lineup because you know there's guys around that can do that as well. No one is vital, but when he steps up and does stuff like this, it really shows how important he really is and how much he can help the ballclub."

When Zimmerman drove in Rendon in the eighth, he became the first player in Nationals history to have three go-ahead RBIs in a single game. It allowed Drew Storen to pitch a perfect eighth and Jonathan Papelbon to close out the win in the ninth.

"It's unbelievable," Storen said. "It's a lot of fun to watch. He's such a true professional. He's not a guy that's a big vocal guy, but he just comes in and gets his work done. He's got a beautiful swing and swings a big bat and it goes a long way and I'm happy about that."

After battling for years, Papelbon now gets to play on the same side with Zimmerman.

"It's pretty special," Papelbon said. "There's nothing fazing him right now. He's locked in. I've always said throughout my career, I'd rather face a great hitter than a hot hitter and he's as hot as they get right now."

Zimmerman's sixth-inning homer was the 200th of his career, making the 30-year-old the fifth player in the history of the Nationals/Expos franchise to reach that mark.

"Yeah, I'm getting old," Zimmerman joked a day after the 11th anniversary of his major league debut. "It's hard to think about things like that when you're still playing. But it's not too bad for a guy who was supposed to be a defensive specialist. Anytime you do anything in this game, it's humbling. It's a really, really hard game. Anytime you can do anything special like that, it's fun."