Reynolds powers Nats to 6-4 win, four-game sweep of D-backs

PHOENIX - For a month and a half now, the Nationals have overcome a host of injuries to regulars thanks to some unlikely performances from guys who they've been forced to add to their big league roster along the way.

Mark Reynolds just joined that club tonight with a most impressive debut in a most familiar setting.

Reynolds, the veteran slugger who played the first four seasons of his career with the Diamondbacks before embarking on a meandering journey that on Saturday featured a promotion from Syracuse to Washington, blasted two home runs at Chase Field, the second of which snapped an eighth-inning tie and propelled the Nationals to a 6-4 victory and a four-game sweep.

Thanks to Reynolds' pair of homers, plus earlier solo shots by Bryce Harper and Trea Turner, the Nats were able to withstand a brief bullpen implosion after another dominant-if-brief start by Jeremy Hellickson.

And when Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle combined to record the final seven outs, the Nationals wrapped up a four-game sweep of a Diamondbacks club that had not lost any series so far this season. They head home having gone 6-1 on the West Coast. And at 24-18, they're a season-best six games over .500, though still in third place in the division, trailing the Braves by only 1 1/2 games.

The game, with an odd 5:07 p.m. local starting time, began with the roof and panels closed at Chase Field. The ball doesn't carry as well under those conditions, even less so since the Diamondbacks installed a humidor to help keep the baseballs from drying out. Harper was among those who complained about the sizeable number of long drives off Nationals bats this weekend that died at the warning track, but with one mighty swing in the top of the third he made sure none of that mattered.

Harper's 448-foot blast into the right-field bleachers, his 13th homer of the season, set the stage for a couple of his teammates to duplicate the feat in the fifth and sixth innings ... after the roof and panels opened.

Turner ripped a ball down the left field line and into the home bullpen to lead off the fifth, his fifth homer of 2018. One inning later, Reynolds - who hit 60 homers here as a Diamondback from 2007 to 2010 - hit his first as a National.

That extended the Nats' lead to 4-1, and allowed their bullpen to take over with a three-run lead after the latest quick hook of Hellickson.

The well-traveled starter once again was brilliant for five innings, allowing just one run on three hits and retiring 15 of the 18 batters he faced on a scant 61 pitches. He now has a 2.20 ERA and 0.86 WHIP in six starts, outstanding numbers for a No. 5 starter. He's also only averaging 5.4 innings and 75.2 pitches per start as the Nats do everything in their power to prevent him from facing a lineup three times in a game.

So in spite of the shaky optics of it all, Davey Martinez stuck to the master plan tonight and pulled Hellickson after five brilliant innings, turning the game over to a bullpen that has worked as much as any unit in the majors.

Sammy Solís and Trevor Gott made it through the sixth inning unscathed, but Brandon Kintzler couldn't make it through the seventh. The right-hander surrendered four hits to the six batters he faced, capped by Daniel Descalso's two-out, two-run double to leave the game tied 4-4.

That turn of events certainly left Martinez in a position where he was going to have to answer for his quick hook of Hellickson and turn to his tired bullpen. Then a veteran newcomer in a familiar old ballpark turned the game right back the Nationals' way and sent them home with spirits soaring.