By Jeremy Kahn

SAN FRANCISCO-With the National League Championship Series in their sights, the game slipped away from the San Francisco Giants on one play.

Wilson Ramos laid a bunt down the third base line in the top of the seventh inning, and Madison Bumgarner picked it up and threw it wide of third base, allowing Ian Desmond and Bryce Harper to score the first two runs on the Bumgarner throwing error and the Washington Nationals would go on to defeat the Giants 4-1 before a sellout crowd of 43,627 at AT&T Park.

The loss by the Giants ended their 10-game postseason winning streak, a National League record.

It was the first loss by the Giants in the postseason since losing Game Four of the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals on October 18, 2012 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

“To be honest, I was hoping we would get an out there. He tried to do a little too much there on the bunt. You know, take the out. He tried to rush it. He threw it away. He threw it away well,” said Bruce Bochy.

Asdrubal Cabrera added a run-scoring single after the Ramos sacrifice bunt attempt and subsequent throwing error by Bumgarner to score Ramos to give the Nationals a 3-0 lead.

With the runs coming against Bumgarner, the left-hander saw his scoreless inning streak of 22 innings come to an end.

The streak by Bumgarner now owns the second longest scoreless streak in Giants history; Christy Mathewson owns the longest such streak at 28.0 innings that went from October 9, 1905 until October 14, 1911.

Bumgarner went seven innings, allowing three runs on six hits, walking just one and striking out six.

Doug Fister, Bumgarner’s opponent on the mound, also went seven innings, allowing just four hits, while walking three and striking out three.

This was Fister’s first start in the postseason since Game Two of the 2012 World Series while pitching for the Detroit Tigers and against Bumgarner.

It was in that game that Fister took a ball of his head which led to the Giants scoring their only runs of the game, as the Giants took Game Two by the final of 2-0 on their way to their second World Series Championship in three years.

“But Doug pitched great. He was in command all day with everything. You know, he just continues to compete for us. And we were able to manufacture something there. Both sides of the diamond, the offense wasn’t there today, but we were able to get a couple guys on and lay down a bunt and that was the difference,” said Nationals manager Matt Williams.

Pablo Sandoval extended his postseason hitting streak up to 14 games, moving within one of tying former Giants centerfielder Marquis Grissom for the longest streak in National League history.

Grissom hit in 15 consecutive games for the Atlanta Braves in 1995-1996, and the postseason record is 17, held by Hank Bauer of the New York Yankees from 1956-1958, the recently retired Derek Jeter also for the Yankees in 1998-1999 and Manny Ramirez for the Boston Red Sox in 2003-2004.

Anthony Rendon continues his hot hitting, as he went 2-for-4 on the afternoon, raising his average to .467 (7-for-15), with all seven of his hits being singles.

The remaining seven players in the Nationals regular starting lineup are a combined 13-for-96, a .135 batting average.

Harper extended the Nationals lead to 4-0 in the top of the eighth inning, as he took a Jean Machi onto the Arcade in right field for his second home run of the series.

It was the third career postseason home run for Harper, and according to Baseball Reference, Harper is only the fourth player before the age of 22 with three or more home runs in the postseason.

Harper joins Mickey Mantle, Miguel Cabrera and Andruw Jones, who all hit four postseason home runs before they turned 22.