Nationals pound Lackey, Strasburg blows away Cubs in 8-4 win

On Tuesday the Nationals used the unlikely combination of contact and speed at the plate and a low strikeout total from Max Scherzer to beat the Cubs.

Tonight, they reverted back to their more typical formula for success: Their lineup clobbered the ball, and Stephen Strasburg made Chicago's batters whiff over and over again.

Behind Strasburg's 13-strikeout performance and home runs from Anthony Rendon, Matt Wieters and Daniel Murphy, the Nationals captured an 8-4 victory to ensure at least a split of this four-game series against the defending World Series champs, who are dealing with all sorts of issues right now.

On a day in which a portion of the team visited the White House and catcher Miguel Montero was designated for assignment after making disparaging comments about teammate Jake Arrieta, the Cubs not only lost another game but lost star Kris Bryant to an apparent ankle injury on a freak play.

Bryant, the reigning National League MVP, tripped over third base while catching a routine popup in the bottom of the fifth and rolled his right ankle. He needed to be helped off the field without putting weight on his foot as the blue-wearing portion of a crowd of 31,072 held its collective breath and Nationals star Bryce Harper watched nervously from the opposing dugout as his boyhood friend from Las Vegas departed with what might be a serious injury.

At that point, the Nats already held a comfortable lead, thanks to a barrage against Chicago starter John Lackey.

Lackey has had a long and illustrious career that began way back in 2002 with a World Series title as a rookie in the Angels rotation and was bookended last fall when he helped the Cubs break their 108-year curse. But now 38, the right-hander finally looks his age, and the Nationals took advantage of it tonight.

Ten of the Nats' first 15 batters of the game safely reached base, several via well-struck balls. Tops among those were the back-to-back homers clobbered by Rendon and Wieters in the bottom of the second, not to mention Murphy's solo shot to right in the bottom of the fifth.

But it wasn't simply the home runs. Every Nationals batter was all over Lackey, who in his first 61 pitches did not induce a single swing-and-miss.

By the fifth inning, every member of the lineup had either reached base or driven in a run, helping stake Strasburg to a 7-3 lead.

Not that Strasburg needed that much support tonight. The right-hander was locked in right from the outset, cruising through his first three innings on 38 pitches - 30 of those strikes - and striking out six consecutive batters.

The only blip came in the fourth, when Bryant led off with a double and Willson Contreras later lofted a hanging curveball to left for a two-run homer. Ryan Zimmerman's fielding error in the fifth allowed another run to score, but it didn't go against Strasburg's stat line, and the pitcher immediately went right back to work and retired the next eight batters to end his night with a flourish.

Strasburg finished with 13 strikeouts (two shy of his career high) and only one walk, improving to 9-2 with a 3.51 ERA.

Enny Romero served up a towering home run to Anthony Rizzo that landed in the second deck underneath the scoreboard in the top of the eighth, the first earned run the left-hander had allowed in 15 appearances.

Matt Albers then pitched the ninth to close out the Nationals' second straight win and give them a chance to take three of four from the Cubs on Thursday afternoon.