Philadelphia Phillies fans usually feel quite at home at Nationals Park especially when they have a pitcher like Cliff Lee on the mound. Tuesday night they were made uncomfortable by an offensive explosion from the Washington Nationals so much so that by the seventh-inning they and Lee were almost nowhere to be found. The last place Nationals completely dominate the first place Phillies by a stinging 10-2 score.
Nationals starter Jason Marquis earned his sixth notch in his belt by holding down a potent Phillies line-up. Marquis' only mistakes in six-innings of work was giving up back-to-back home runs to Domonic Brown and John Mayberry in the fifth. Marquis finished with two earned runs on just four hits, striking out four and walking none. It was yet another powerful performance from Marquis and he got an odd sort of support from his offense.
The Nationals offense exploded on their NL East rivals led by second baseman Danny Espinosa who drilled two home runs off Lee (one a three-run homerun) and went 3-for-4 with four RBI. The rest of the Nationals offense helped out in the Phillies nightmare. Former Phillie Jayson Werth had two RBI, first baseman Michael Morse went 3-for-5 with two RBI and both Ivan Rodriguez and Jerry Hairston Jr. collected RBIs of their own. The Nationals dropped 10 runs on the Phillies in total which is the highest run total any team in 2011 has tagged the Phillies with and the final 10-2 is the highest margin of victory for the Nationals against Philadelphia since baseball returned to D.C. in 2005.
The Nationals move to 23-31 and are in last place in the NL East.