Harper’s homer helps Nats dump White Sox

WASHINGTON — Even Davey Johnson, at 70 the oldest manager in the majors, never heard of this one: The umpires got caught in a traffic jam.

That was the official reason given for the 16-minute delay at the start of what turned out to be his Washington Nationals’ 5-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday night.

Johnson’s shortstop, Ian Desmond, could empathize.

“I’ve been stuck in traffic many a time here in D.C. I’m surprised they got here as fast as they did,” Desmond said with a smile. “It’s always an adventure here.”

Desmond had a triple and a pair of doubles. Las Vegan Bryce Harper homered, and Danny Espinosa provided his first two RBIs of the season, helping the Nationals improve to 5-0 at home. Jordan Zimmermann (2-0) limited Chicago to two runs. both on ground outs, and seven hits in seven innings.

“We threw a lot of fastballs inside and got a lot of broken bats,” said Zimmermann, who is 7-0 with a 2.91 ERA in his past 13 home starts.

Johnson said the umpires “called in about 40 minutes before the game and said that they were a mile away, but it may take forever.”

He added: “Didn’t seem to bother Zim too much. Pitched a great ballgame.”

Drew Storen pitched the eighth, and closer Rafael Soriano worked around a hit in the ninth for his fourth save in five chances.

Harper hit his fourth homer into the second deck leading off the fourth against Gavin Floyd (0-2), who allowed five runs and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings. Harper turned on Floyd’s first pitch of the at-bat with a “thwack!” Harper paused for a moment to watch his shot before sprinting around the bases.

“Early on, he’s hacking,” Floyd said, “My cutter didn’t cut like I wanted it to.”

That gave the Nationals 11 homers in their past four games, 15 for the season. The 14 entering Wednesday were a franchise record through a season’s first seven games.

Floyd struck out the next two batters, but then he got into more trouble, giving up Desmond’s double and Espinosa’s single that gave Washington a 2-1 lead.

“It’s a tough lineup,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “And when you get to that fifth or sixth inning, it’s hard to get through it again.”

Every Nationals starting position player reached base at least once; the only one without a hit, Kurt Suzuki, walked three times.

Harper’s next time at the plate, in the fifth, he followed a single by Jayson Werth with a single up the middle of his own, this time on a 91 mph first pitch. TV replays showed Harper’s bat split on impact with the ball, then broke completely as the wood slapped against his back on his follow-through.

Ryan Zimmerman followed with an RBI single to shallow right.

After Chicago drew within 3-2 on Alex Rios’ RBI ground out in the top of the sixth, Washington chased Floyd in the bottom half by tacking on two more runs.

Desmond led off with a triple, Espinosa followed with an RBI double, Suzuki walked and Zimmermann sacrificed the runners over.

Floyd was done, and lefty reliever Donnie Veal came in to face Denard Span but gave up a run-scoring single.

“There were a lot of guys that had really good (at-bats),” Harper said, “and really came up big for us tonight.”