WASHINGTON -- Bryce Harper and Daniel Murphy are becoming quite the 3-4 punch.

In the Washington Nationals' 8-3 victory over the Cardinals on Tuesday, Harper and Murphy -- batting third and fourth, respectively, in manager Dusty Baker's lineup -- combined to reach base eight times in 10 plate appearances, scoring five times and driving in five runs. It was the kind of dynamic duo Baker was hoping for last season, but one that never really materialized.

Last April, when Harper was busy setting the world on fire as the NL Player of the Month, he did so from the 3-hole, with Ryan Zimmerman manning the cleanup spot and Murphy batting primarily fifth. By the time May rolled around, with Zimmerman slumping badly, opposing teams started avoiding Harper. During a four-game series at Wrigley Field that many viewed as the beginning of Harper's undoing, the Cubs walked Harper a whopping 13 times.

Eventually, Baker flip-flopped Zimmerman with Murphy, but by that point, the damage seemed to be done: From May 9 on, Harper hit just .238 (135th out of 148 qualified MLB players) with a .395 slugging percentage (127th). This season, Baker finally seems to have figured out the magic combination in the middle of his lineup.

In each of Washington's first eight games this season, Baker has had Harper hitting third with Murphy right behind him. Through those eight games, the Nats lead the majors in scoring (6.0 runs per game), Murphy leads the league in hitting (.472), and Harper leads the league in looking like he's back to his old self.

In Monday night's 14-6 win over St. Louis, Harper went 4-for-4 with two walks and reached base in all six of his plate appearances. He followed that up by walking in each of his first three trips to the plate Tuesday. By reaching safely in nine straight plate appearances, Harper tied a career high that he set last season during that very same Cubs series (all were walks). The difference between then and now is that this spring, the Nationals -- and specifically, Murphy -- are making teams pay for avoiding Harper.

In the third inning Tuesday, Murphy followed a Harper free pass by lacing a ground single to right field that drove in Washington's first two runs. In the fifth, after a leadoff walk by Harper, Murphy pulverized a Lance Lynn changeup, depositing it into the second deck to give the Nats a commanding 6-2 lead. Just for good measure, Harper and Murphy smacked back-to-back doubles in the eighth inning to plate Washington's final run of the game. Suffice it to say, Baker doesn't plan on tinkering with his lineup anytime soon, at least not the middle of it.

"They can be as good as there is in baseball," said Baker of Harper and Murphy. "They both walk, they both hit left-handers, both hit right-handers, and so I'd like leave my 3-4 alone and kind of work around that. I'll just try to find a way to maximize the rest of the guys in the lineup and have some balance up and down the lineup."

Having balance throughout the lineup is part of what has Murphy off to such a good start.

"Adam [Eaton] is getting on base all the time," Murphy said. "Bryce is living on base. It's creating so many openings for the guys behind them right now, myself included. Again, you look at the at-bats that Bryce is having -- three walks tonight and a double down the left-field line -- he's so dangerous right now. When there's traffic on the basepaths, I roll a ball through the 3-4 hole, and it ends up being two RBI. That's only because there's guys on the bases, and it forces the defense not to be able to play where they want to play."

Of course, as adept as Murphy is at hitting, he's just as good, if not better, at deflecting attention and pretending that what he's doing at the plate isn't anything special. But a ridiculous 2015 postseason followed by a ridiculous 2016 regular season followed by a ridiculous start to the 2017 season would seem to indicate otherwise.

"It’s impressive," said Eaton, the center fielder who came over from the White Sox in an offseason trade. "When you play in the AL, you only get little bits and pieces of guys in the NL throughout the season. We heard he was unreal, but being able to see it, it's something special."

"Murph's really carrying us right now," veteran outfielder Jayson Werth said. "Bryce, too. Those guys are fun to watch."

As fun as any 3-4 punch in baseball.