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LOS ANGELES -- Jordan Zimmermann won his NL and major league-leading seventh game, Ryan Zimmerman drove in three runs and the Washington Nationals defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-2 on Monday night after losing Bryce Harper in a violent collision with the wall in right field. Zimmermann (7-1) allowed nine hits and two runs in 7 2/3 innings, struck out five and walked none. Harper left the game in the fifth after hitting the scoreboard wall face-first while tracking a ball hit by A.J. Ellis over his left shoulder. He never looked at the wall and when he finally turned, he was on top of it. The impact sent Harpers cap flying as he bounced off the wall and crumpled to the ground, with Ellis getting a triple. Harper rolled onto his back and eventually got up under his own power. Streaks of blood were evident on his neck as he walked off the field. There was no immediate update on his condition before the game ended. He was playing just his second game after missing two with an ingrown toenail that required surgery. The Nationals ended a five-game skid at Dodger Stadium, where they were swept last year when Harper made his major league debut. The Dodgers two-game winning streak ended after Josh Becketts shortest outing of the season. Beckett (0-5) gave up four runs -- two earned -- and three hits in three innings while striking out five and walking two. Zimmermans RBI grounder in the first gave Washington a 1-0 lead. His RBI double added two more runs in the third, when Adam LaRoche made it 4-0 on a RBI groundout. Beckett gave up three runs on one hit in the inning. The Nationals extended their lead to 6-0 in the fifth. Zimmerman grounded into a fielders choice to pitcher Javy Guerra, and Steve Lombardozzi scored on Guerras throwing error. LaRoches RBI single scored Harper, who walked. The Dodgers trailed 6-1 in the sixth on Skip Schumakers RBI groundout. Matt Kemps RBI single in the eighth drove in their other run and extended his hitting streak to 12 games. It wasnt Harpers first collision with the wall at Dodger Stadium. Last year in the second game of his career he hit the centre-field wall while making a catch and hurt his back. On April 30 in Atlanta, he bruised his left side leaping toward the fence while trying to prevent a home run. Notes: Nationals RF Jayson Werth, on the 15-day DL with a strained right hamstring, will see a doctor in New York on Tuesday. Hes likely to rejoin the team this weekend in San Diego. ... Dodgers RHP Zack Greinke will pitch on Wednesday; the team just isnt sure whether it will be for them or at Single-A Rancho Cucamonga. He is on the 15-day DL with a broken left clavicle. ... Dodgers 1B Adrian Gonzalez returned after getting Sunday off, and extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a single in the first. ... The Nats improved to 16-2 when scoring first this season. ... 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Custom Arizona Diamondbacks Jerseys . -- Arizona raced out to a big lead and did not back off, hitting the accelerator instead. I remember two things about my first major league baseball game: Dale Murphy homered, and somebody -- probably Jose Uribe -- got into a pickle. I believe he escaped that pickle, but what I really remember is the pickle itself, and somebody nearby yelling Pickle! Thats what I remember, which is to suggest that the two most significant events in baseball are home runs and pickles.The sport of baseball would largely disagree. Heres a snapshot of major league baseball rundowns as they actually are:It lasts less than four seconds. Tyler Naquin dutifully backs away from the opponent with the baseball, as his contract requires, but once a rundown begins the outcome is basically conceded. Jose Altuve simply runs until he reaches Naquin, who slumps his shoulders and allows defeat. As the play officially ends, Altuve and Naquin seem almost to be sharing the same goal: closure. Altuve, for a moment, if you pause it just right, looks like a Boy Scout helping an elderly lady cross the street.I want to tell you about Josh Harrison, though. Harrison is an unexceptional baseball player who has had his moments. His player page tells you he is a utility player with a broad range of skills that dont stand out. He does it all, but only OK. He has never led the league in an offensive category. But he is the best in the world at something extremely small, which probably describes almost all of us (whether we know it or not). At least the thing Harrison is the best in the world at shows up in highlight packages: He is the king of the pickle, which, 30 years from now, I hope will be one of the things I definitely remember from this game.We have nine episodes to demonstrate Harrisons rundown skills. Many of these episodes will end in outs, these being, after all, rundowns. Episodes have been assigned chronologically, but we will bounce around a little bit.4, 5, 6: Peak HarrisonEpisode 4: June 27, 2014The key detail here -- besides the outcome -- is the helmet. What Harrison attempts with each rundown is something like entropy: The longer the rundown persists, the less orderly it becomes, particularly because Harrison keeps introducing countless shifts of pace and direction to thwart any sort of coagulation. The helmet is quickly out of this play, but for a moment there is a bouncing helmet in the middle of a baseball play, and no matter how many rundown drills the Mets performed in spring training they definitely did not run a drill for when theres a bouncing helmet on the field.Ultimately, if Harrison can stay in the pickle long enough, this chaos will affect everybody: Eventually the pitcher will be involved in the play and trip on his feet, or the left fielder will come down and get in the way, or somebodys coverage will get blown, or the baseline will end up so drastically redrawn that nobody knows where it is anymore -- the last of which is exactly what happened in this play.Harrison, literally on his tummy in the infield grass, has disappeared from Ruben Tejadas concern. Tejada considers Harrison out of the baseline and thus out without a tag, and for just a moment he gives up on the play. The umpire does not see it this way. The umpire and Tejada are operating from different maps. Harrison does not consult maps. He simply follows his nose toward the nearest safe place he sees, which in this case happens to be third base.Time spent in rundown: 12.36 seconds Changes of direction: 6 Touches of ground: 7 Times down, by rules of college football: 3 Steps: 38 Score that play: 1-6-5-6 ... ... which is the House Bill that: repealed in Pennsylvania a law requiring physicians to obtain informed consent from patients for treatment of breast disease.Episode 5: July 27, 2014This is, simply, the most audacious baserunning Ive ever seen. Harrison overslides the second-base bag on a stolen base. His momentum spins his body around, so that he is on his knees, facing a man with a baseball, and five or so feet from second base. His solution to this: Run somewhere else. If youve ever taken a screenwriting seminar, youll recognize in this a perfect first act: Hero living unextraordinary life is jolted out of it by an instigating event. Forced to make a choice, he embarks on a heros journey that will require he confront various obstacles until he reaches his goal. Harrison embarks.As Rockies manager Walt Weiss would say after the game, Weve got to get an out there. I look at a rundown as a free out. This is exactly Josh Harrisons elevator pitch: Everybody knows a rundown is a free out. What my career presupposes is, what if its not?Time spent in rundown: 13.16 seconds Changes of direction: 6 Touches of ground: 5 Steps (estimated): 40 Score that play: 2-6-5-6-1-4-2 ...? ... which is phone number for: Cerritos Auto Sales of Wallingford, Connecticut.Episode 6: Sept. 10, 2015Josh Harrison had a narrow hallway when he was growing up, and it is to this that his brother attributed?his pickle skills in a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story:The long hallway that led from the front door to the kitchen was much more than just a hallway. It also was a baseball diamond, football field and even basketball court for Harrison and his older brothers, Vince Jr. and Shaun. It was narrow, so maneuvering around opponents required some skill.Vince Jr. thought about that hallway earlier this season when he watched his youngest brother -- nicknamed Magic Feet from his youth football days -- dodge and duck his way out of a rundown to land safely on third base in a game against the New York Mets.If I had a dollar for every phone call and text I got after that, and a lot of it was my friends, Shauns friends, Joshs friends going, Thats Magic Feet! Thats from the games we played in that hallway! said Vince, 34. Im not the only person who thought there was a direct correlation.Harrisons best chance in this rundown was probably when first baseman?Adam Lind had the ball, and second baseman Luis Sardinas was closing in on him to take the throw. Sardinas might have gotten too close, and there might, might, have been a moment Harrison could have accelerated past him before Lind could have delivered the throw. Instead, Harrison waits for the throw, reverses, and then reverses again, trying to use Sardinas momentum against him. There are moments I suspect Harrison prefers staying in the rundown to actually beating the rundown, which is just spurious speculation, but its how I was when I was a kid playing in a hallway.Time spent in rundown: 7.12 seconds Changes of direction: 4 Touches of ground: None before the tag Steps: 9 Of which steps how many might be conssidered high: 3 Score that play: 2-4-3-4 .dddddddddddd.. ... which is the Lego part number for a: Knob Stone 2x4x2 piece1, 2, 3: Prequel HarrisonEpisode 1: Sept. 2, 2011Harrisons first rundown in the majors is still a year away, but this play -- made in just his 48th career game -- is a nice introduction to Harrison the baserunner. We see shortstop Starlin Castro go deep into the hole to field a grounder, and we see second baseman Darwin Barney race over to first base to back up the throw. There are only two middle infielders, and weve just accounted for them both, as has Harrison, who produces the only play of 2011 that would be logged into official records as Double To Shortstop (Ground Ball to Weak 3B).There is always a certain amount of math involved in exploiting a rundown, in finding the precise moment when the base is most vulnerable to charge. Here, Harrison uses that math to pre-empt a pickle. It is the literal opposite of a rundown -- rather than lots of defenders, there are none -- but we consider it canon anyway.Episode 2: Sept. 24, 2012We have here a few elements that will be seen again in later episodes, including just the faintest hint of a loping high step, the desperation drop to the ground and Ruben Tejada. But Harrison is still young here, and his skills are not yet well-developed. He doesnt expand the baseline, staying right on the line the entire time. He doesnt pick a vulnerable defender and attempt to run past him, he doesnt use the ground as a balancing aid, and but for a single juke he doesnt do much to disrupt the defenders timing. He is cooked, and while he shows more emotional resistance to this fact than the average pickled baserunner, he has not developed any plan for defeating it. When we see a shot of him head-on, he is grimacing, not yet having fun.Time spent in rundown: 7.12 seconds Changes of direction: 4 Touches of ground: None. Steps: 17 Score that play: 4-6-5-2-5 ... ... which is the postal code for: Santa Rosalia, in the state of Jalisco, Mexico.Episode 3: June 30, 2013Harrison is out here, as nearly all runners in nearly all rundowns will be, but give him credit: He got the catcher, Rob Johnson, to do exactly the wrong thing, leaving his feet and sailing past Harrison, opening up a possible lane for Harrison to advance forward to a run only 30 or so feet away. The umpire rules Harrison out on the tag, even though Johnson tagged him with an empty glove (the ball in his throwing hand). Even had the umpire noticed that, Harrison would have likely been out on the throw, but remember: The out in a rundown is considered all but automatic, so it is a considerable victory to force a tumbling catcher to make an off-balance flip from his stomach into a congested throwing lane. Over the course of 8.61 seconds, Harrison improved his chances of survival from maybe 1 in 100 to maybe 1 in 4, or so.Time spent in rundown: 8.61 seconds Changes of direction: 7 Touches of ground: 3 Steps: 19 Score that play: 1-5-2 ... ... which is: barely worth noting here at all.7, 8, 9: Sequel HarrisonEpisode 7: Aug. 9, 2016Harrison defies my hypothesis that he simply likes pickles and finds reasons to stay in them. Here, he abandons a budding rundown but earns a free stolen base with an akimbo slide. Thats another way to do it!Episode 8: Aug. 11, 2016Derek Norris, the Padres catcher, does the one thing that Harrison cant beat: He holds the ball, stays on his feet, and (mostly) keeps his body between Harrison and the next base. In most of these plays, Harrison tries to find a pitcher or a catcher to isolate against, and once Norris gets the ball Harrison is intent on beating him. Its fun to watch and, for just a moment, at 0:09 in that highlight video, with the ball snug in Norris catchers mitt instead of throwing hand, Harrison seems to have daylight for a dash home. But he misses the moment, perhaps discouraged by a crowded running lane that includes not just the pitcher but the umpire and a bat. Reversing himself, he lets Norris back into the play and snuffs his own chances.Time spent in rundown: 8.55 seconds Changes of direction: 6 Touches of ground: None Steps: 19 Score that play: 6-2 ... ... which is:?probably the appropriate way to handle an overactive Josh Harrison in a rundown.Episode 9: Sept. 8, 2016Alas, Harrison is again undone by baseballs decision to play on loose pebbles. His final spasm, though -- his pathetic little attempt at rolling away from Brandon Phillips, as though there might be some alternate ending -- is a career of Harrison rundowns in a nutshell: Until youre out, youre safe. There are no bonus points for helping the other team make it official. And maybe, just maybe, Brandon Phillips mom will call him to dinner in the nick of time.Heres another thing I remember: When we were kids, we would play pickle at recess for weeks in a row. Thered be 20 or 30 of us darting from one base to the other, trying to avoid the two kids with gloves who were it. It was just tag, of course, but tag with narrow boundaries and extra challenges.Baseball is, essentially, tag with narrow boundaries and extra challenges. In fact, when Slate challenged readers to describe the sport in 150 words or less, the winning entry began:Baseball is like tag, except the only way you can tag someone is with the ball. There are two teams: the fielders, who try to tag the other, the batters. The batters goal is to lap the field, without being tagged.Its also, essentially, other things. Its also a stick-and-ball game, where the point is to hit the sphere as far as possible. Its also a darts-type game, where the point is to throw a sphere into a small zone with as much velocity and accuracy as possible. Every year, in fact, it becomes more and more of those games: On a per-plate-appearance level, home runs were hit more frequently in 2016 than any year in history. Strikeouts were higher than ever, too, the 10th year in the past 10 that a new record was set. You could imagine a history of baseball where the tag elements were emphasized, and these many decades later we all cheer for the worlds best tag players. Instead, there is less call than ever for it.So it goes for Josh Harrison. We get to make a lot of choices in this world -- whether to juke, to high-step, to sprint, to fall flat, or to let ourselves be put out. We dont, alas, get to choose which athletic skills earn worldwide adulation.Thanks to Rob McQuown and Baseball Prospectus for research assistance. ' ' '