Nationals surrender season-high 5 homers to Phillies

WASHINGTON -- The Nationals knew the Phillies could hit for power when they got hot. But Washington had held its divisional opponents to three home runs across the first two games of the weekend series, and none were allowed by the bullpen.

The series finale on Sunday had a different outcome.

The Nationals allowed a season-high five home runs in an 11-3 loss to the Phillies at Nationals Park. Right-handers Trevor Williams and Andrés Machado surrendered a pair of homers while Thaddeus Ward gave up one.

“I think they have a very good lineup with guys that are built to hit home runs like they did today,” said manager Dave Martinez. “Once they get going, that’s how they generate runs -- they hit homers."

Washington’s previous season-high in dingers allowed was four, which happened four times -- April 1 vs. Atlanta, April 4 vs. Tampa Bay, May 19 vs. Detroit and May 23 vs. San Diego.

Williams gave up the first home run of the afternoon to J.T. Realmuto in the second inning. Williams landed the fastball where he wanted to, but he credited Realmuto for getting a good swing on the line drive to right-center field. It was the catcher’s second home run in as many days against the Nats.

“I was just hoping that the fences would be a little higher and [it would] hopefully bounce off,” said Williams.

In the fifth inning, Drew Ellis belted his first of two home runs off a Williams’ fastball. The 398-foot solo shot to left field put the Phillies up, 2-1.

“It was something that we were trying -- go up, up and in,” said Williams, “and it leaked back over the plate.”

Williams has allowed at least one homer in his past four starts and two home runs in four of his 12 outings this season.

“I have to do a better job of limiting free passes recently, and home runs are another thing for sure that I need to carry over,” he said. “If you’re going to look at the positive of giving up homers, solo homers don’t usually beat you. Unfortunately, the three-run blast beat us.”

Williams allowed runners to reach first and second with two outs in the sixth. As his pitch count hit triple digits, Martinez made the call to the bullpen -- which is without a lefty -- for Machado.

Facing his first batter of the day, Machado gave up a home run to Kyle Schwarber on a 1-2 sinker. The Nats’ deficit quickly jumped to 5-1.

“Coming in, I tried to do my best that I can do,” Machado said. “I think I missed that pitch, so I had to go inside, run a little bit in the middle. But it’s tough when you’re coming in, you try to do the best and nothing can happen.”

As the Nationals’ bats remained quieted, the Phils’ offense stayed hot against Machado. Ellis pummeled his second homer on a sinker that drove in Kody Clemens for an 8-1 lead in the seventh. Machado has given up a combined nine runs (including three home runs) across his past three relief appearances.

Schwarber put an exclamation mark on Philadelphia’s hitting performance by clobbering his second dinger with two runners on in the ninth inning off Ward.

“I wish we can go out there and say we are going to score eight runs a game every game, but the way we were able to go out there and take advantage of when we got guys in scoring position and being able to get guys in scoring position, [I] felt like we did a really good job this weekend on the offensive side,” said Schwarber.

The Nationals will look to make adjustments the next time they face the Phillies. The previous two games in which they had allowed five home runs dated back to last season -- and they were against Philadelphia.

“Our location -- we’re throwing too many balls up, too many breaking balls in the zone up,” said Martinez. “We’ve got to start throwing balls down. Like I’ve said all along, when we throw the ball down, we’re really good. So we’ve got to start throwing balls down, our misses have got to be down."