Nats once again break out the bats for Ross in 10-1 rout of Seattle

Apparently, the best way for the Nationals to score a bunch of runs is to make sure they send Joe Ross to the mound.

With Ross back after a three-week demotion to Triple-A Syracuse, the Nationals broke out their big sticks during their best offensive performance in some time, blasting the Mariners during a 10-1 victory at rain-soaked Nationals Park.

Jayson Werth, Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon all homered during an eight-run bottom of the fourth against embattled Seattle starter Christian Bergman. Rendon also homered off Bergman in the bottom of the second, conjuring up memories of his three-homer, 10-RBI performance on April 30 against the Mets.

The Nationals' starting pitcher that day, coincidentally or not, was Ross. He was demoted to the minors shortly after that, with club officials wanting the right-hander to work on his sinker command and overall stamina.

Summoned back from Syracuse to start the opener of this interleague series, Ross provided the Nationals exactly what they needed: eight innings of one-run ball. His diminished velocity after the fourth inning - his fastball dropped from 94-95 mph to 89-90 mph - raised some eyebrows, but there was no arguing the results.

Besides, every time Ross takes the mound for the Nats, he gets more than enough run support to account for any struggles of his own. He has now made four big league starts this season, and the Nationals have scored at least 10 runs in every one of them. The 62 runs they've scored in total is a record for any major league pitcher in his first four starts of a season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Rendon got the Nats on the board tonight, blasting a two-run homer in the bottom of the second that may have been hit high enough to bring even more rain than already was falling from the sky.

The big rally came in the fourth, an inning in which the Nationals matched a club record with nine hits, three of them homers. Werth's two-run shot over the left field bullpen looked like the biggest blast of the inning, but then Harper followed with a 450-foot moonshot to straightaway center field, one of the longest home runs hit in that direction in the ballpark's history.

Despite the onslaught, Bergman remained on the mound, with nobody warming in the Mariners bullpen. And so it was that Rendon took the laboring right-hander deep again, this time a three-run homer to center to cap the eight-run outburst and turn this game into a rout.

In the process, Bergman became the first major league pitcher to allow 14 hits and four homers in a game since the Cardinals' Edwin Jackson on August 3, 2011.