WASHINGTON — It is August, so Blake Snell is the pitcher the Padres intended him to be and need him to be.
The left-hander has in his two seasons with the Padres been inexplicably inconsistent — until summer gets going and he heats up.
In the Padres' 6-0 victory Sunday against the young and scuffling Nationals, Snell was almost unfair.
His slider broke into the zone and out of it, as the Nationals missed on more than half their swings against the pitch. They hardly did better against his fastball, which averaged almost 96 mph and was drawn as if magnetized to the zone. There just wasn't much a bad team could do against a good pitcher, which Snell tends to show he is this time of year.
The result Sunday was his longest scoreless outing of the season, six innings in which he walked none and struck out 10.
Nationals rookie Joey Meneses had two of the three singles yielded by Snell. Meneses was the only player to reach second base against Snell, doing so only because catcher Jorge Alfaro lost the ball while beginning to attempt a throw to first base on a pick-off attempt.
Facing the team with the worst record in the major leagues and a starting pitcher who had a 5.14 ERA in his previous 11 starts, the Padres rode some timely hitting and good fortune to their second straight series victory.
Paolo Espino threw more pitches (109) than he ever had in the major leagues and went deeper in a game (5 2/3 innings) than he had this season. But the Padres got two runs in the fifth with help from two soft grounders that could have been played better by his infielders and scored another run in the sixth when a fly ball that would have been the third out was lost in the sun.
The Padres took a 1-0 lead when Wil Myers' two-out double scored Jake Cronenworth, who had walked and advanced to second on Trent Grisham's bunt out.
Jurickson Profar and Juan Soto began the third inning with a walk and single, respectively, and both scored. Manny Machado drove in Profar with a single, which moved Soto to second. He got to home in 90-feet increments on successive grounders by Josh Bell and Brandon Drury.
Myers' second two-out RBI, on a single, came after Grisham reached on a two-out double that Nationals center fielder Victor Robles lost in the sun.
The Padres added two runs in the ninth against Tyler Clippard on Myers' bunt single, Machado's infield single, a hit batter, two walks and an error.
Snell, who had a 5.60 ERA in 35 1/3 innings over his first seven starts this season, has a 2.07 ERA in 43 2/3 innings over his past eight starts. He has allowed no more than one run in any of his past five starts, posting a 0.94 ERA over 28 2/3 innings in that stretch.
The Padres can hope this follows what is really a career-long habit and was overwhelmingly the trajectory of his 2021.
Snell, who has excelled in the postseason and whose second-half ERA (2.64) is almost 1.50 lower than his first-half ERA over his seven big-league seasons, began his first campaign with the Padres last year looking nothing like the pitcher who won the American League Cy Young award in 2018 while with Tampa Bay.
In his first 19 starts after he was acquired from the Rays in a December 2020 trade, Snell had a 5.44 ERA and lasted six innings in just three games. Opponents were batting .251 against him, and he had 105 strikeouts and 55 walks in 84 1/3 innings.
Over his final seven starts before an adductor injury ended his season in early September, Snell posted a 1.85 ERA and went at least seven innings four times. Opponents batted .136, as he struck out 65 and walked 14 in 43 2/3 innings.
