Phillies wait out long rain delay and finish off sweep of Nationals

The Phillies waited through a 3-hour, 35-minute delay during Sunday’s game against Washington at Citizens Bank Park, and they spent it the way most fans did: watching the Eagles’ road victory over the Detroit Lions.

“It’s hard [to stay locked in for that long],” Rhys Hoskins said. “There’s a little bit [of rain] to start, OK, it’s light, we’ll stay locked in. You stay loose. But after a while it looked like the rain was going to stay. We got to be Eagles football fans for today, which was pretty cool. We don’t get to do [that] on Sundays during the year.”

The wait was worth it. After experiencing the longest midgame rain delay in franchise history, the Phillies completed a three-game series sweep over the Nationals with a 7-5, come-from-behind win. Aaron Nola got the start but pitched only two innings (44 pitches) before the rain started to fall. When play resumed, long man Cristopher Sánchez took over for Nola in the third.

Nola’s outing was short but strong: two hits and no runs or walks, with two strikeouts. Interim manager Rob Thomson said that Nola was in the indoor cages simulating innings during the first part of the delay, but he stopped because the delay was too long. Thomson said that Nola will keep his regular turn in the rotation.

From there, Sánchez pitched three innings and allowed seven hits, four earned runs and one walk with two strikeouts. Sánchez hadn’t pitched since Sept. 2. The bullpen — namely José Alvarado, Seranthony Domínguez and David Robertson — locked it down to secure the win, allowing no runs. The Phillies are now 78-62.

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The Phillies are 63-34 when they hit at least one home run, and on Sunday, they hit two. Rhys Hoskins hit a game-tying, three-run homer to right field in the fifth inning that traveled 355 feet, and Alec Bohm hit a two-run homer in the seventh. Bohm’s 362-foot shot proved to be the game-winning hit, giving the Phillies a 7-5 lead.

The Phillies did a good job of working their at-bats and getting on base. They had six walks in the game, falling two walks short of tying their season high.

“We’ve been getting a lot of guys on base, and if you continue to do that, traffic on the bases, eventually the big hit is going to come,” Hoskins said, “and today, we got a couple of big hits. They seem to come in bunches.”

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Domínguez made his first appearance since being activated off the 15-day injured list on Sunday morning, and he didn’t disappoint. He pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning with one strikeout. The right-handed reliever was in the 97-99 mph range; his fastest pitch of the night clocked in at 99.4 mph.

“I thought he was good,” Thomson said of Domínguez, who returned from triceps tendinitis. “Velocity was good. He got behind in the count, but he came right back, especially after the first two hitters. I thought he looked good, I thought he looked normal.”

Robertson came in for the save in the ninth inning and saw his velocity go up a few ticks from his previous few outings. (His fastest pitch was 92.7 mph.) Robertson, who hadn’t pitched since Thursday, struck out the side. With Domínguez back, Robertson will have someone to share the bulk of those late, high-leverage innings.

“He looked a lot crisper tonight,” Thomson said. “I didn’t see the velocity, so I don’t know where it was at, but the breaking ball and the cutter looked crisper.”