PHILADELPHIA -- A couple hours before Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola threw his first pitch on Sunday at Citizens Bank Park, interim manager Rob Thomson was asked if he might start a relief pitcher over Nola in case rain came early. The Phils did not want to start Nola, watch him pitch a couple innings, then lose him because of a lengthy delay. Thomson said no. He had been caught in the past trying to be too cute, only to watch that idea backfire.
But then Nola started, the rain came and they lost him.
Philadelphia beat the Nationals anyway, 7-5. Alec Bohm’s two-run homer in the seventh proved to be the difference as the Phils took a 1 1/2-game lead over the Padres for the second National League Wild Card spot with 22 games to play. They are 3 1/2-games ahead of the Brewers, who are chasing both teams. The Phillies own tiebreakers over both San Diego and Milwaukee.
“It was a huge win,” Thomson said.
It was huge because the Phillies and Nationals sat through a 3-hour, 36-minute rain delay. It was the third-longest single regular season rain delay in Phillies history, trailing a 4-hour, 27-minute delay on Sept. 28, 2006, in Washington, and a 3-hour, 51-minute delay on June 15, 1996, in Colorado.
It was the longest single regular season rain delay at home in Phillies history. It was the longest single mid-game regular season rain delay in their history, too. Notably, Game 5 of the 2008 World Series in Philadelphia entered a rain delay, but it was suspended and resumed two days later.
It is not easy to play baseball after that.
“How do you stay locked in 3 1/2 hours?” Rhys Hoskins said. “The short answer is, you don’t. It’s hard. There’s a little bit at the start like, ‘OK, it’s light.’ You 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. But after that, it’s talking about some of the pitchers we might face coming in, definitely get physically loose. It took us a few innings once we got out there, but it was nice to see us put some at-bats together and start to get into a rhythm on the mound. And Bohmer had a big swing of the bat.”
Nola pitched two scoreless innings. He walked to the mound to start the third with a 1-0 lead when umpires called for the tarp to be pulled. Major League Baseball had control of the situation from there. It wanted to finish the game because it was the Nationals’ last trip to Philadelphia and it wanted both teams to maintain their days off on Monday.
“The balls in the umpire’s side bag were wet,” Nola said. “Every time I got them, my hand was wet. I couldn’t grip it.”
Cristopher Sánchez replaced Nola once play resumed. He allowed four runs in three innings as the Nationals carried a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the fifth. Hoskins hit an opposite-field three-run home run to tie the game.
The Nats scored a run against Nick Nelson in the sixth to take a 6-5 lead, but Hoskins’ sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning tied it again.
Hoskins is batting .310 (13-for-42) with four doubles, two homers, six RBIs and an .896 OPS in his past 10 games.
Maybe he is at the beginning of another one of his hot streaks.
“I’m in,” he said. “Obviously, the timing would be great. It’s a sprint. We’ve got 22 left. Shoot, what more could you ask for as a competitor? You’d like to be clinched already, but this is going to be as competitive as it gets. I know the whole group in here is pretty excited.”
Seranthony Domínguez pitched a clean eighth inning in his first appearance back from the 15-day injured list. His fastball touched 99.4 mph. He looked good. David Robertson pitched a clean ninth for his 19th save of the season.
The Phillies open a six-game road trip Tuesday in Miami. They finish in Atlanta.
“We know it’s there,” Hoskins said about a postseason berth. “We can feel it. But we need to win games. We’ve got to win as many games as we can until we get there.”