The Cubs walked Harper six times on Sunday, making him the first player in over 100 years to reach base seven times without recording an official at-bat. Harper was also hit by a pitch, giving him 12 straight plate appearances without an at-bat, a modern major league record.

“If the other guy gets you, that’s fine. You have no problem with that,” Cubs Manager Joe Maddon said after the game. “I know [Harper] hasn’t been as hot as he can be coming into this series, but you don’t want him to get hot. We did what we had to do today, and it happened to work.”

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In this case, the “other guy” is Ryan Zimmerman — the Nationals’ everyday cleanup hitter who bats behind Harper.

Traditionally, you’d want your cleanup hitter to be a big bat, someone who tallies for extra-base hits and drives in runs. Zimmerman is doing neither. The 31-year-old is batting .236 with one home run and 12 RBI, producing a career-low isolated power — slugging percentage minus batting average — of .104.

“You can feel the pressure mounting on [Zimmerman], but this guy’s been a clutch man in this organization for a long time, and he’s one of the premier clutch men in the game, so I’m sure it’s killing him,” Nationals’ Manager Dusty Baker said.

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It’s killing the Nationals, too, especially since Zimmerman hasn’t been “clutch” since 2014.

For example, in high-leverage situations — the at-bats that feature the highest possible change in win probability — Zimmerman is batting .143 with four strikeouts in 14 plate appearances. Last season he hit .200, producing runs 37 percent lower than average after adjusting for the park and league in which he plays (63 wRC+). That’s two years of decline for a batter who is on the wrong side of 30 years old.

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Perhaps it is time to let Daniel Murphy, who is batting .395 with a 1.079 OPS, hit in the No. 4 spot.

Murphy is making contact on 95.9 percent of pitches in the strike zone and changes to his batting stance last year suggest this is no fluke.

The change has allowed Murphy to pull the ball more often, resulting in a spike in his OPS and power numbers.