Harper homers again, but Phils solve Papelbon for comeback win

PHILADELPHIA - Nationals closer Jonathan Papelbon was back in a familiar place Sunday: on the hill at Citizens Bank Park looking to close out another victory.

But his former team had other ideas.

Suffering his first blown save of the season, Papelbon allowed a run-scoring double by Freddy Galvis in the 10th as the Phillies scored two runs to salvage the final game of the series 3-2.

The Nationals had gone ahead 2-1 in the top of the 10th thanks to another dramatic home run by Bryce Harper.

Papelbon and manager Dusty Baker pointed toward Peter Bourjos' double that dropped just fair inside the left field line at the feet of Jayson Werth as the key hit to begin the rally.

"That's life of a closer, off the end of the bat, somehow finds a little hole in the corner over there," Papelbon said. "I still felt confident. Just at the tail end there, I just didn't execute pitches. That's really all it boils down to."

"I don't think he was off," Baker said. "He was throwing harder than he had been any other time. It was tough to see at the end there with the shadows. But they saw some pitches pretty good, did get some pitches up and they hit it in the right spot.

"Bourjos' ball, we were playing him over in left center. That ball was right on the line, but that could have been foul big time. It was a day of near misses. Just like (Clint) Robinson's ball down the line, so just one of those days. You know you're not going to win them all, but it still hurts to say."

Did this blown save hurt more because it was against the Phillies, the team Papelbon pitched for from 2012 to the middle of 2015?

"All of them suck," Papelbon said. "Your job is to go out there and preserve the win. When you don't do your job it ... You got to learn how to turn the page and move on and go to Miami and win another series. I've blown plenty of these in the past and I know how to handle them. I'll move on, come ready to work and get another save tomorrow. That's just pretty much how it works, keep the line moving."

In a hard fought game, it looked pretty good for the Nationals in the top of the 10th. Once again, their MVP appeared to have stolen another game.

Harper launched a 3-2 pitch over the right-center field wall off Phillies reliever Jeanmar Gomez for a solo home run that lifted the Nationals to a 2-1 lead.

"He's got good stuff," Harper said. "He throws that changeup, might be a split. 3-2 came hard inside, and I was thinking to myself if he came hard in, he's probably thinking I'm going to think off-speed here. I was thinking heater actually, just guessed best I could and got it. Squared it up pretty well, knew I got it, very fired up right there."

Harper has now homered in four straight games, tying the Nationals record. He also has hit a home run in six straight games at Citizens Bank Park, matching the legendary Ernie Banks in 1955, who hit six home runs in six consecutive games in Philadelphia.

"It's awesome, definitely a pleasure to even be in the same sentences as Ernie Banks, but at the end of the day, you want to win ballgames," Harper said of the elite company.

"I just want to win," he said. "Being able to just have good at-bats and doing the things we can to get runs on the board. That's huge. Just trying to take my at-bats one at a time and know that you might get up in a big spot and something may happen. All in all, you want to win the ballgame at the end of the day and it didn't happen today."

The four homers in four games by Harper matches the Nationals record set by Ryan Zimmerman (2009), Michael Morse (2011) and Adam LaRoche (2012).

Harper has six homers on the season with 15 RBIs in the season's first 11 games.
He finished the series with seven hits, three of them homers and six RBIs.

Anthony Rendon delivered a run-scoring single in the sixth to tie the game at 1-1.

Left-hander Gio Gonzalez and Phillies right-hander Charlie Morton battled in a good old-fashioned pitchers' duel Sunday, making the right pitches and getting good defense to play to a draw.

"It was a good game," Gonzalez said. "It was a low-scoring game, it was definitely a battle all the way to the end. Just some hits here and there just landed, and at the end of the day, there's not a closer out there that I wouldn't want to go out there to close a game than Jonathan Papelbon. He's one of the best in the game. He's been doing it for so long."

It is a loss, but it certainly can't take away from another solid start for Gonzalez. He logged seven innings and gave up just one run on a Carlos Ruiz solo homer, allowing three other hits, only two walks and striking out eight. That is one run allowed in his first 13 innings of the season. His era is 0.69.

"I just feel like all three pitches are landing for strikes," Gonzalez said. "There's more confidence coming out of the gates. I believe (in) who I am as a pitcher, where I've gone a good majority of my career of going 200 innings and going deep into games. I think aside from the last two years, I can put that away and move on to this year.

"New manager, I'm ready to pound the strike zone. I want to go out there and try and help out as much as possible, be a part of this rotation that goes seven, eight innings and wanting to do my job as part of it."

Morton was equal to the task on the Phillies side, going six innings and allowing only a Rendon RBI single in the sixth.

"I think it just happens. I think that's baseball," Harper said. "I think Charlie Morton threw great today. That's some of the best stuff I've seen from him in the couple of years that I've faced him. He's definitely tough and I thought we battled until the end, got ahead there and things happened."

Baker said the big picture is still the Nationals having won nine of their first 11 games of the season and taking this series as they had back to Florida for a four-game series against the Marlins.

"It was a tough loss. But you know you're going to lose some," Baker said. "We've been on the good end of most of them. We played a good game today. Our pitching was outstanding. We had some near plays, and some near plays that (were) out at the plate almost.

"It's one of those games. Things really didn't go our way too much. Most of the replays went against us. I was hating replays after awhile. We got to put this behind us and star a new streak because we know we're going to Miami."