WASHINGTON _ Nick Pivetta stood frozen in his follow-through, bent slightly at the waist, arms hanging at his side. By the time he straightened up, the ball had landed in the left-field seats and Anthony Rendon was rounding the bases, having hit a first-pitch fastball for the go-ahead home run.
When will the Phillies straighten up? And what will the National League East look like when they finally do?
Those questions hung over the Phillies Thursday night like the rain clouds above the nation's capital all week. After yet another loss, 7-4 to the Nationals, the Phillies packed their things and limped home from a 1-5 road trip. They have dropped seven of eight games _ and 13 of 19 _ and slipped to 4 { games out of first place. In 23 days, they have lost eight games in the standings to the division-leading Braves.
The free fall has been precipitous. Endless, too. Gabe Kapler awoke here Thursday and tossed the batting order like a salad in an attempt to spark a slumbering offense. The changes generated nine hits and four runs, one more than they had scored in their previous three games combined. And the Phillies might have put a more lopsided number on the scoreboard if they hadn't had two runners thrown out at the plate _ Scott Kingery in the second inning and Bryce Harper in the fourth, marking the second consecutive game that he got cut down at home after an overaggressive baserunning play.
But just when the offense started to click, the pitching faltered again. Pivetta threw a first-pitch fastball to fastball-mashing Rendon and gave up a leadoff homer in the sixth inning that broke a 3-3 tie. Five batters later, reliever Edubray Ramos hung an offspeed pitch to Victor Robles, who crushed a three-run shot _ the league-leading 124th homer allowed by the Phillies this season _ to break open the game.
Maybe the lowly Miami Marlins, who lug their league-worst record into Citizens Bank Park on Friday night, will be the Phillies' elixir. At this point, their presence is as good a solution as anything.
After the Phillies scored a total of two runs and got swept in a doubleheader Wednesday, Kapler said he planned to get "creative" with the batting order. So, he moved Harper up to the leadoff spot and Rhys Hoskins to the No. 2 hole, dropped Jean Segura to the No. 5 spot, and gave slumping Maikel Franco an increasingly rare start.
How's that for creative?
"The thought process is we feel like we're a more successful club when we see (a lot of) pitches in the first inning," Kapler said. "By having Harper and Hoskins at the top of the lineup, they don't have to do anything different other than who they normally are. And if that happens, we're likely to see more pitches in the first inning."
Indeed, Hoskins entered the game having seen a league-leading 4.54 pitches per plate appearance. Harper was close behind at 4.17. And neither Cesar Hernandez (4 for 32) nor Segura (2 for 20) produced in the leadoff spot since Andrew McCutchen suffered his season-ending knee injury.
It took four innings for the Phillies to score against Nationals starter Erick Fedde, but they made him work hard. He threw 84 pitches by the time they knocked him from the game in the fourth inning.
By then, though, Pivetta had left the Phillies in a 3-0 hole. He gave up a run on back-to-back doubles by Rendon and Juan Soto in the first inning and a two-run to Phillies-killing Kurt Suzuki in the second. Five of Suzuki's eight homers this season have come against the Phillies.
The Phillies finally broke through in the fourth inning on RBI singles by Harper and Jay Bruce. Segura, who remained in the lineup one night after not running hard out of the box on a bloop single, tied the game with a solo homer in the fifth inning.
But the pitching couldn't hold the fort. And after playing through more raindrops for the last half of the game, the Phillies returned home all wet.
