Nationals 3, Tigers 1: Bryce Harper hit his first homer of the month and Jordan Zimmermann became the National League’s first six-game winner as host Washington won the opener of a two-game series.

Harper started the day mired in a 3-for-26 skid, but drove in Washington’s first run with a third-inning sacrifice fly and later drilled a fifth-inning solo homer to right-center. Zimmermann (6-1) surrendered one run on seven hits in seven innings with seven strikeouts, and Rafael Soriano worked a perfect ninth for his 11th save.

Anibal Sanchez (3-3) struck out eight in six innings, allowing three runs (two earned) and eight hits with no walks for Detroit. The Tigers could only muster a run-scoring single from Miguel Cabrera in the third.

Denard Span, Danny Espinosa and Adam LaRoche each finished with two hits for Washington. Span tripled leading off the third and scored on Harper’s sacrifice fly, and LaRoche singled to left-center starting the fourth, eventually scoring on Kurt Suzuki’s sacrifice fly to give the Nationals a 2-1 lead.

Jhonny Peralta finished 2-for-3 for Detroit. Cabrera went 1-for-4, dropping his major-league leading batting average to .381.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Rain delayed the start of the game by 57 minutes. … The Nationals’ victory ended two streaks: Washington came in 0-6 all-time against the Tigers and Sanchez entered the game 8-0 with a 1.97 ERA in 19 career starts against Washington. … Harper has 10 home runs in 32 games; he needed 85 games last season to reach 10 homers.