Photo by Sol Tucker/Nats.Talk

The Washington Nationals had Foster Griffin pitch into the 8th inning tonight en route to a 4-1 win over the rival Phillies. The Nats are now 12-4 in Griffin starts. This game went through a 1½ hour rain delay, and that didn’t slow the Nats down.

❝We’ve played a lot of playoff teams, and we’re up there above .500, and pushing for a Wild Card spot.

I’m really impressed with this team as a whole. We’re not backing down from anybody. It doesn’t really matter the names on the back of the jersey, or what team we’re playing.

We feel like we’ve got a good lineup — and a good staff to go out there and combat it.❞

— Foster Griffin said

The Nats offense got home runs tonight by Luis Garcia Jr. and Curtis Mead to score three of the runs with Dylan Crews driving in another key run in a RISP spot. Also, Crews earned a walk with bases loaded on a pitch clearly out of the zone — but was called out in the 3-2 count by the homeplate ump who got away with it since the Nats were out of challenges. Fortunately that botched call and others that went against the Nats by homeplate ump Jeremie Rehak didn’t impact the win.

There is a lesson here about burning your challenges on Low Lev calls because an umpire can impact the game after that. In that 8th inning with Mead batting he was called out on a 2-2 pitch with bases loaded and one out and even motioned to challenge the call — but the Nats had no challenges remaining. Then Crews followed with that bogus ꓘ in that 3-2 count. All of this because teammates blew challenges, one in the first inning and the other in the top of the 8th inning on the 1st pitch of an at-bat.

Every Nats starter had at least one hit except for Daylen Lile. The Nats put together 12 hits in the game, one walk, and one hit-by-pitch. James Wood, Crews, Keibert Ruiz, and Nasim Nunez all had 2-hits apiece in this one.

❝[Griffin] had everything working tonight. He was able to move the ball in every direction tonight. … He struck-out nine and didn’t walk anybody.❞

— manager Blake Butera said

With Griffin going deep in the game, the Nats only needed help from Richard Lovelady for the hold, and Clayton Beeter for the save. The rest of the bullpen got the night off.

With this win, the Nats would have the third Wild Card spot in a tie-breaker with the Cubs. There are now 83 games remaining in the regular season.