Ramos delivers a longball, Span extends a streak (more Phillies miscues)

PHILADELPHIA - If Wilson Ramos is worn out from having started 12 straight games, he sure isn't showing it. Ramos smoked a three-run homer to deep right-center field in the second inning, giving the Nationals a 3-0 lead over the Phillies. It was a bomb from Ramos, who took a 1-0 fastball from Phillies righty Ethan Martin and drove it over the scoreboard in right-center, one of the deepest parts of the park. It's the 10th homer of the season for Ramos, who is now up to 37 RBIs on the year. Ramos has battled hamstring issues multiple times throughout the season, but when he's been healthy, he's produced offensively. Denard Span, meanwhile, now has a 16-game hitting streak going after his third-inning single to center. It extends what was already a career-best hitting streak and bumps Span's average up to .276 on the season. That's the highest Span's average has been since May 13. During this 16-game streak, Span has hit .410 with a homer, two triple and two doubles. He's only started 13 of those 16 game (not including yesterday's appearance in which he came in as a defensive replacement but did not get a plate appearance), making the streak even more impressive. Gio Gonzalez is through three scoreless innings, but he's needed 54 pitches to get to this point. Gonzalez is facing a Phillies lineup that has just one batter hitting over .255 and five position players batting .235 or lower, but he's had some long innings so far. Still, he has a 3-0 lead to work with. Update: The Phillies brought two runs across on Gonzalez in the fourth on Cody Asche's two-run single, but the Nats then answered right back with two more runs of their own. Those runs came in with a big assist to Phillies pitchers, however. Martin and Justin De Fratus combined to allow four walks in the top of the fifth. Three of those walks came in order. Two of them came with the bases loaded. Both of those bases-loaded walks were on four pitches. Nats hitters pretty much just stood there in the fifth. Phillies pitchers did the rest. It's now 5-2 going to the bottom of the fifth. Update II: Not only did the Nats plate two runs on four walks surrendered by the Phillies in the fifth, they scored two unearned runs after an error and a balk in the sixth. Span reached for the third time in four at-bats on a throwing error by Asche, and then a walk and two RBI singles followed. Jayson Werth blooped a single to center that brought in Ryan Zimmerman, and Ian Desmond then singled in Bryce Harper to make it a 7-2 game. This has been a pretty sloppy ballgame all around, but the majority of the miscues have been made by the home team, and the Nats have a healthy lead as a result.