Photo credit: @NBCSGiants

By Jeremy Kahn

What a day it was for Brandon Crawford in the series finale for the San Francisco Giants against one of the best pitchers in baseball, Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals.

Crawford picked up three hits in his three at-bats versus Scherzer, including a two-run home run off of Scherzer in the top of the fourth and the Giants defeated the Nationals 2-0 at Nationals Park on Sunday.

On the afternoon, the hot hitting Crawford ended up going four-for-four, as the Giants took the series two games to one, and more important, took the season series four games to two.

Crawford singled in the top of the first inning, then smashed a two-run home run into the second deck that proved to be the only runs of the game for both teams. Crawford then doubled in the top of the sixth inning, and with a chance for the cycle, Crawford doubled down the left field line to complete his four-hit day.

It was the eighth home run of the season for Crawford, and his 29th and 30 runs batted in on the season.

Crawford, who struggled thru the month of April, as he batted .189 thru the first month of the season, is now hitting .338.

Since May 1, Crawford is hitting .439, as he is 58-for-132 during that stretch. His .338 batting average is just three points behind Freddie Freeman of the Atlanta Braves, who is batting .341.

Derek Holland went the minimum five innings to pick up the victory for the Giants, who are now 2-1 on their three-city, 10 game road trip thru Washington, Miami and Los Angeles.

Holland gave up three hits, walking two and striking out four, as he improved to 4-6 on the season.

Bruce Bochy turned the game over to his bullpen, and they performed in an outstanding manner, as former Nationals closer Mark Melancon pitched the sixth inning, walking one, then Sam Dyson walked and struck out a batter in the seventh inning, then Tony Watson pitched a perfect eighth.

Hunter Strickland came on in the bottom of the ninth, who got Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon and Matt Adams, who came on to pinch hit for Mark Reynolds to pick up his 13thsave of the season.

Strickland, who in their last meeting hit Harper that led to a bench clearing brawl got Harper to ground out to Crawford for the first out. Rendon then followed it up with a ground ball with a ground ball to Crawford and then Strickland got Adams to strikeout swinging to end the game.

Scherzer went seven innings, allowing two runs, while scattering four hits, walking three and striking out nine, as he saw his record on the season fall to 10-2 and his earned run average increase from 1.95 to 2.00. This was the first loss for Scherzer since April 4, breaking his nine-game winning streak.

NOTES: Madison Bumgarner will make his second start of the season on Monday evening, as the Giants continue their road trip against the Miami Marlins at Marlins Park, who will send Wei-Yen Chen, who is 1-3 with a 5.86 ERA on the season.

In his season debut on Tuesday night, Bumgarner went six innings, allowing two runs, walking no one and struck out three after missing the first two months of the season with a broken left pinkie.

This was the first series win for the Giants against the Nationals in Washington since July 9-11, 2010, the year that the Giants won the first of their three World Championships in a five-year period.

Crawford is the first Giants batter to ever get three hits in the same game off of Scherzer.

UP NEXT: The Giants will head to Miami to take on the Marlins for a four-game set. Game 1 is set for Monday at 4:10 pm PDT.