Late homers off depleted bullpen spoil Nats' night (updated)

That the Nationals found themselves in a position to win tonight’s game against the Phillies was a testament to MacKenzie Gore’s intestinal fortitude over six gutsy innings and the lineup’s ability to actually make Zack Wheeler work enough to knock him out after only five.

These two division rivals, residing at opposite ends of the NL East, were tied heading into the seventh before a boisterous, Friday night crowd of 35,143. It was about as much as the Nats could have asked for under the circumstances.

The problem: A Nationals bullpen that causes heartburn even when at full strength was without its two most reliable arms. So what happened next couldn’t have shocked anyone in the building, especially when considering the opponent.

Back-to-back home runs by Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper off Konnor Pilkington flipped the game in the top of the seventh, the Phillies’ big boys taking down a rookie member of the Nats’ relief corps en route to a 6-2 victory on a steamy August evening in Navy Yard.

"Look, you know you've got to play well against that team. Because if you don't, they can beat you up," Gore said. "I think just understanding that going in ... a tough loss tonight, but I think we all did a good job of that."

With Cole Henry unavailable and Jose A. Ferrer perhaps only available for a save situation – each pitched an inning to close out Thursday’s win after each pitched 1 1/3 innings to help win Wednesday’s game in Kansas City – interim manager Miguel Cairo was working with minimal options in relief of Gore.

"We have pitchers in there that have got to come in there in situations like that and do their job," Cairo said. "And they've been doing their job. Today, we just hung two sliders that Schwarber (and Harper) didn't miss. Yesterday, we got him. And he got us today. Sometimes it goes like that."

Cairo initially tried to get through the seventh with Clayton Beeter, hoping the rookie right-hander could handle the bottom of the Phillies lineup. Beeter proceeded to walk two of the three batters he faced, throwing only four of his 14 pitches for strikes.

So Cairo signaled for Pilkington, hoping the left-hander could handle the imposing top of the Philly lineup. Pilkington got the right-handed Trea Turner to pop up, but he couldn’t keep either of the two lefty sluggers in the yard. Schwarber launched a slider 456 feet into the second deck in right-center, his 22nd homer in 58 games against the Nationals since 2022, his fifth in eight head-to-head games this season. Harper then followed with a 414-foot shot to center for only his fourth homer in 41 games against his former club since 2022.

"I'm left-handed. I'm going to face lefties," said Pilkington, who was making his 28th career appearances, his 12th for the Nationals. "At the end of the day, I made two poor pitches and they capitalized on it. It's the big leagues. You make a mistake, and hitters do a really good job of exposing that."

Thus did a 2-2 game become a 6-2 game, the Nats never coming close to mounting a comeback against Philadelphia’s bullpen, which lost new closer Jhoan Duran after he was struck in the right ankle by a Paul DeJong comebacker to open the bottom of the ninth. Once Duran was eventually carted off the field after a long wait, veteran David Robertson entered from the bullpen to record the final three outs. (X-rays taken on Duran's ankle came back negative, and the Phillies said he'll be evaluated further Saturday.)

It’s hard to imagine the Nationals playing a sloppier top of the first than they put forth tonight. Three batters in, they already had been unable to get to a ground ball to CJ Abrams’ left, allowed a stolen base with no throw, uncorked a wild pitch, issued a walk and allowed a hustle double to Harper that wound up scoring two runs when Dylan Crews’ throw got past Abrams with nobody backing up the play. Add another walk and a hit-batter, and Gore had thrown 37 pitches by the time he walked off the mound with his team trailing 2-0, needing to escape a bases-loaded jam to keep the score right there.

Was the left-hander about to fall back into his slump from a few weeks ago? No, he was not. He righted the ship in dramatic fashion and completely shut the Phillies down after that.

"Like anything, one pitch at a time," he said. "Bases were loaded, one pitch at a time. Try to get out of it, and we did."

Only two more batters reached base against Gore in the game, both of them on singles, only one of them advancing beyond first base. And he did all this while becoming far more efficient. After throwing those 37 pitches in the first, he needed only 54 more to complete the next five scoreless frames, all while striking out seven.

"After the first inning, he was a little off," Cairo said. "And all of a sudden, he just turned the machine on."

After getting Harrison Bader with a curveball to end the sixth, Gore twirled and pumped his fist before heading back to the dugout to receive high-fives from his teammates and coaches. It wasn’t nearly as dominant as his 13-strikeout Opening Day gem against these same Phillies, but it was one of his gutsiest starts of the season and it kept his team in the game against one of the best opponents in baseball.

"There was an adjustment, obviously, and we made it and we finished strong," Gore said. "I think if you go six (innings) and two (runs) on 90-whatever pitches ... it was an interesting way to get there, but I think overall against a good team, it was solid."

The Nationals haven’t enjoyed much success vs. Wheeler in quite some time. The bulldog right-hander hadn’t allowed more than two runs or five hits in any of his five previous starts against them the last two seasons, and he had completed at least six innings in each of them.

The production tonight – two runs on four hits – kept that run alive. But in making Wheeler work harder than he usually has to work – 97 pitches over five innings – the Nats finally found a way to get him out of the game prior to the sixth and get to the Philadelphia bullpen.

They scored the two runs with a couple of extra-base hits from young lineup regulars. Abrams ripped a first-inning double to right-center to score James Wood (who opened the inning with an eight-pitch walk). Daylen Lile later blasted a splitter at the knees to right-center for his third career homer, this one tying the game 2-2.

"I usually watch him during the postseason, when he's throwing 99-100," Lile said of facing Wheeler. "It was definitely awesome facing a guy like that who I've seen on TV a lot, playing with him on 'MLB The Show.' To finally face him and see him in real life, and to do that, it's definitely awesome."

There were other productive at-bats, as well, even if some of them didn’t result in hits. The headliner: Josh Bell saw 12 pitches from Wheeler in the third before grounding out. On a hot, muggy night, Phillies manager Rob Thomson had no choice but to go to his bullpen in the sixth.

"Wheeler, in the fifth or the sixth, you want to take him out of there," Cairo said. "If you let him keep it going, he will dominate. ... It was nice to see them battling against that caliber of pitching."

Alas, Cairo also had to go to his bullpen by the seventh. And his already-shaky unit was without its two most trusted arms, leading to a sadly predictable result.

"That was a good game," the interim manager said. "MacKenzie, that first inning was a long inning. He kept his composure and threw five good innings after that. He kept us in the game."