WASHINGTON – These aren’t the pitches you’re looking for.

They staged an authentic Star Wars Day promotion at Nationals Park on Sunday, complete with playing conditions that might have matched the surface temperature on Tattooine.

Despite extreme heat and humidity, Zack Greinke continued to perform his Jedi mind tricks on hitters, winning a Cy Young showdown with Max Scherzer by throwing eight scoreless innings to extend his scoreless streak and beat the Washington Nationals, 5-0, Sunday afternoon.

Greinke has not allowed a run since Justin Upton’s eighth-inning home run at San Diego on June 13. The streak of 43 2/3 scoreless innings since then is the longest since Orel Hershiser’s record 59-inning scoreless streak in 1988 and the fourth-longest since 1961 behind Hershiser, the previous record held by Don Drysdale (58 in 1968) and Bob Gibson’s 47-inning streak also in 1968.

Only three pitchers since 1920 have had six consecutive scoreless starts and all three were Dodgers at the time – Drysdale in 1968, Hershiser in 1988 and Greinke.

And all of this means – nothing to Greinke.

“I don’t think about it at all,” he said.

His deep analysis of how he has been able to do this didn’t extend much beyond, “Just not making a bunch of mistakes and making good pitches.”

His streak was never really in danger Sunday. The Nationals managed one hit and a walk in the first five innings against Greinke. They added two more harmless singles in the sixth and seventh innings as Greinke struck out a season-high 11.

“All three of my best pitches were working good today,” Greinke said, down-grading his curveball to “all right.”

“So that kind of helps.”

Yeah, it probably does. Catcher Yasmani Grandal had to leave the game in the sixth inning when he was hit in the face mask by a foul ball. A.J. Ellis replaced him and checked with Greinke on what approach he needed to take in calling pitches.

“I’m back there calling pitches and I don’t know exactly what was working for Zack. I don’t know exactly what sequences he’d been using to put guys away during the game,” Ellis said. “So I kind of went out there after the first out and said, ‘Hey, I’m just going to follow your lead here.’

“Zack said, ‘It’s pretty easy. All my stuff is pretty nasty right now.’ We went from there. And he wasn’t exaggerating. He was dominant.”

He has been all season, really. Greinke’s latest gem lowered his major-league-best ERA to 1.30. In 19 starts, he has allowed more than one run just four times. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly called Greinke “an artist … more of a (Greg) Maddux-type guy.”

“It’s weapons and the more weapons you have to go attack guys – you can’t attack all guys the same,” Mattingly said. “One guy you may have to throw more sliders to. One guy you may be able to beat with a fastball on one side of the plate. One guy you may be able to beat him on the other side of the plate.

“If you can do all those things and you can mix all your weapons, then you have a lot better chance. If you’re a two-pitch guy and this guy happens to hit one of those pitches really well it kind of puts you in a bind.

“But Zack can get to both sides of the plate. He can go up. He can go down. He’s got the power change. He’s got a good slider. He’s got a lot to cover. As a hitter, it’s hard to cover all that.”

Despite the extreme heat – the game-time temperature was 93 with a heat index approaching 110 during the game – Mattingly stuck with Greinke through eight innings.

“Tremendous again,” Mattingly said. “Looked like he was locked in early. I think when these kind of guys get together – a Scherzer and him – they know they can’t give up runs. It looked like Zack came out of the gate knowing he had to be sharp and he was.”

Scherzer wasn’t really. He gave up seven hits in six innings, throwing 96 pitches to get that far and wild-pitching home a run in the second inning.

That was all the Dodgers got in the first eight innings despite outhitting the Nationals, 15-5, and loading the bases in the second and seventh.

They loaded them again in the ninth and broke through for four runs this time on RBI singles by Andre Ethier and A.J. Ellis and a two-run single by Yasiel Puig (who struck out four times in the game).

Contact the writer: bplunkett@ocregister.com