Phillies fall to Nationals, lose third straight to fall another game behind in NL East

WASHINGTON — The Phillies couldn't take advantage of a Washington Nationals team suddenly in transition on a day of surprising deals.

Despite sending Daniel Murphy to the Chicago Cubs and Matt Adams to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Nationals had plenty of offense in a 10-4 win over the Phillies in a game that began on Tuesday and ended early Wednesday morning at Nationals Park.

The Phillies have now lost three in a row and dropped two games behind first place Atlanta in the National League East after the Braves scored a 6-1 win over Pittsburgh. Washington remained 7.5 games out.

Washington took a 1-0 second inning lead on pitcher Tanner Roark's RBI double to center.

A one hour and 42-minute rain delay came before the bottom of the third inning and when the game resumed, Phillies starter Vince Velasquez returned to the mound, but Roark was replaced by lefthander Matt Grace.

In three scoreless innings, Roark allowed just one hit, a single by Carlos Santana.

Velasquez ended up pitching four innings, allowing one run on three hits. He threw 58 pitches, 36 for strikes.

Scott Kingery pinch hit for Velasquez with a runner on first and two outs in the fifth. Kingery flew out to deep left field.

"It was an offensive move," manager Gabe Kapler said in why he lifted Velasquez. "He would have gone back out actually."

Velasquez said he felt rejuvenated by the rain delay.

"That hour (plus) kind of made me loosen up a little more," Velasquez said. "I think I was feeling fine. I settled in after giving up that run and kind of felt motivated going out in the third and fourth."

Hector Neris took over on the mound, but departed after the Nationals loaded the bases with one out in the fifth inning.

Victor Arano then got Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon on short flyouts to left field to escape any damage.

The Phillies scored four runs in the sixth inning, all against Grace, who they knocked out of the game.

Quinn tied the score with a solo home run to left to lead off the sixth. He hit a 1-2 slider for his first career home run.

Cesar Hernandez then reached base on an error by shortstop Trea Turner and advanced to third on Rhys Hoskins bloop single to right.

Asdrubal Cabrera and Carlos Santana hit RBI singles and Maikel Franco added an RBI groundout to make it 4-1.

As impressive as Arano was in getting the Nationals top two hitters out in the fifth, he surrendered the lead by allowing four runs in the sixth inning.

After Matt Wieters made it 4-2 with a one-out RBI single to right, Andrew Stephenson tied the score with a pinch hit two-run home run. Like Quinn, it was his first career home run. Wilmer Difo then broke the tie with a solo home run off Arano.

Entering the game, Arano had allowed 11 earned runs in 47 1/3 innings and had not allowed more than two earned runs in any of his previous 45 outings this year.

"Arano has been so strong all year long and we couldn't have felt more confident with him on the mound and he made some mistakes with his fastball and got beat with his fastball," Kapler said.

The Nationals would score another run in the inning on Harper's RBI double off Adam Morgan.

Ryan Zimmerman made it 7-4 with a solo home run to lead off the seventh against Edubray Ramos.

The Phillies had some late-game chances. In the seventh they had runners on first and second with no outs and failed to score.

Quinn struck out with the bases loaded to end the eighth inning.

Afterwards he called it a bittersweet night, hitting his first home run, but also striking out in that key situation.

"It was a good feeling (hitting the home run) but I am still little upset about bases loaded, swinging right there," Quinn said. "Key situation of the game and I had a chance to make something happen like that but I didn't come through."

Washington then blew the game open with three runs in the eighth on Rendon's RBI double and a two-run single by Wieters.

It was that kind of night for the new-look Nationals.