Tucker Barnhart breaks up Max Scherzer’s no-no in the eighth

Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer was five outs away from tossing his second no-hitter of the season before surrendering a single to Cincinnati Reds catcher Tucker Barnhart with one out in the top of the eighth on Monday at Nationals Park.

That hit came on Scherzer’s 105th pitch, and fans at the stadium rose to salute the right-hander with a standing ovation.

Burke Badenhop also pitched against the Nationals, working around a leadoff double to throw a scoreless seventh inning. Scherzer no-hit the Pirates in a 6-0 victory on June 20. It did keep alive the Reds’ streak of not being no-hit in the regular season since 1971, so at least there’s that. It would have come a year to the day since Jordan Zimmermann had ended the 2014 home schedule with a no-hitter of his own.

Before the eighth inning, Schumaker came closest to getting a hit off Scherzer – and he did so twice.

Update IV: The Nationals added to their lead with RBI sacrifice fly from Reed Johnson that scored den Dekker in the eighth, making it 5-1. den Dekker had two doubles and a homer with two runs and two RBIs.

This is the third different time this season that the Reds have lost nine games in a row. On Tuesday, they travel south to visit the Atlanta Braves before ending the season at Citi Field, facing the N.L. East champion New York Mets.

Six different pitchers have thrown a no-hitter in 2015: Scherzer, Chris Heston, Cole Hamels, Hisashi Iwakuma, Mike Fiers and Jake Arrieta. Halladay had the NLDS no-hitter against the Reds and a regular-season ideal game against the Marlins.

Harper sat because of his part in Sunday’s altercation with Jonathan Papelbon – or as a regularly scheduled day off, depending on whom you talked to when – absent from a lineup that did not include many Nationals regulars anyway. He walked two, struck out three, and allowed a home run. In the third inning, he made a diving catch, leaping parallel to the ground with glove extended, to rob Schumaker of what probably would have been an RBI hit. That three-game suspension began Monday and Papelbon is not allowed to be around the team for the Major League Baseball suspension and is not expected to be on the road trip. Harper, who remains the frontrunner for the NL MVP Award with league highs of 41 home runs and a.336 batting average, flied out in the eighth to end an 0-for-4 afternoon against the Philadelphia Phillies before exchanging words and getting his throat grabbed by the veteran closer.