It helped that the Braves, who were in second place and three games behind entering Monday, were edged by the Pirates, 2-1, in Pittsburgh.

This is the first time the Nationals have won a division title since moving to D.C. after the 2004 season.

“We put ourselves in that position by playing good baseball,” third baseman Ryan Zimmerman said. “We made these other teams have to play perfect baseball to catch us. It’s not strange at all [clinching after a loss]. We worked so hard for that, we deserve it.”

The Nationals learned they’d won the NL East at approximately 10 p.m. ET, as they were batting in the bottom of the ninth inning, when it was announced at Nationals Park that the Braves had lost. While the fans cheered, the entire team exchanged hugs in the dugout.

“It was one of those breathtaking moments,” left-hander Gio Gonzalez said. “We just said, ‘Go back inside the clubhouse. Wait until everybody comes back in.’ This is unbelievable. I think this is incredible to be doing it in front of the D.C. fans. Words can’t describe this feeling.”

After Danny Espinosa grounded out to second baseman Chase Utley to end the game, the Nationals celebrated in the clubhouse for about 30 minutes. They doused general manager Mike Rizzo, who built the winning team. They doused Stephen Strasburg, who was shut down last month as a precaution following Tommy John surgery in late 2010.

“[Strasburg] is part of it, definitely. He pitched his [tail] off,” Bryce Harper said. “It was really sad that he had to be shut down, but it’s OK. We have the crown of the NL East. The new year is going to be fun, because he gets to throw the whole year.”

The team went back to the field to celebrate with the fans, who were addressed by Rizzo, Zimmerman, Gonzalez and Harper. Missing from the celebration was manager Davey Johnson, who spent the entire celebration in his office.

Jayson Werth didn’t hesitate to credit Johnson for turning the Nationals into a winning squad. When Werth joined the team after the 2010 season, he wasn’t sure if the Nats would turn things around.

“When I got here, this place was upside down,” said Werth. “[Things didn't change] until Davey took over [last year]. When September came around, this team became a type of team that could really play, could really show up every day and have a lot of heart. It wasn’t until September last year that the belief was there.

“We came into Spring Training this year with the same mind-set, same guys, we added a few key pieces. We knew we were going to lose [Strasburg]. We had a lot of injuries along the way, and it didn’t matter. The guys kept plugging along, we kept playing hard every day. … Here we are, Oct. 1 of year two for me. I couldn’t be happier.”

The Nationals collected just four hits in seven innings against right-hander Kyle Kendrick. Their best chances to score came in the second, fifth and sixth innings. In the second, the Nationals had the bases loaded with two outs, but left-hander John Lannan grounded out to end the inning.

Three innings later, Kurt Suzuki singled to center field with one out and advanced to third base when Kendrick threw the ball past first baseman Ty Wigginton on a pickoff attempt. But Suzuki wasn’t able to score, because pinch-hitter Roger Bernadina flied out to center fielder John Mayberry Jr. and Werth struck out looking.

Harper led off the sixth inning with a double. Three batters later, Harper was on third base when Michael Morse came to the plate, but Morse struck out looking to end the threat.

Lannan pitched well, allowing just two runs on six hits in five innings. The two runs scored in the second. With runners on first and second, Darin Ruf tripled to left-center, scoring Carlos Ruiz and Domonic Brown.

Lannan spent most of the season in the Minor Leagues after left-hander Ross Detwiler beat him out for a rotation spot. On Monday he was celebrating with his teammates.

“Right now, it’s all worth it,” Lannan said. “Being down in [Triple-A] Syracuse and being here right now, it’s all worth it. These fans deserve it, this city deserves it, these guys deserve it. It’s been a long road, but we knew this time was going to come. It’s special.”

After Lannan exited, Craig Stammen dominated, striking out six batters in two innings before making way for Ryan Mattheus and Drew Storen, who blanked the Phillies the rest of the way.

“This is just step one. We need three of those to happen,” Werth said “This is great and all, but want that third one, [the World Series title].”

The 22-year-old rookie started slowly, but showed promise the more he threw.

Unfortunately for Eovaldi and the Marlins, they got into early trouble, and with Cole Hamels on the mound, they were unable to recover in a 4-1 loss to the Phillies on Sunday in front of 28,317 at Marlins Park.

Hamels limited the Marlins to one run on seven hits with eight strikeouts, upstaging a solid season finale for Eovaldi, who yielded three runs in the first inning, but settled to strike out seven in six innings.

“He threw well after the first inning,” Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen said. “It was ugly the first couple of innings; he couldn’t find the strike zone and he was off, very off. After that, he threw the ball well. We gave him another inning to survive his problems and he did it.

“You take that inning away from him and to me, he pitched good enough. The first inning, again, we get down by three runs and Hamels is on the mound, then you got a lot of work to do.”

The Marlins dropped two of three to the Phillies, and nine of their last 10 overall.

At a time the club is preparing to close out a difficult first year in their new home, Eovaldi continues to show potential. After the first inning, he retired 14 of his last 17, with six strikeouts.

His 3-7 record with the Marlins and 4-13 mark overall doesn’t totally reflect the progress Eovaldi has made. In his last three starts, he gave up five earned runs in 20 innings (2.25 ERA) with 20 strikeouts.

“He throws hard. He’s got a good arm,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “The more pitches, the more experience he gets, he’s going to get better. He got a little better after we scored the runs off him early. He settled in. He started getting the fastball over, his command got better. Then when he got ahead of us, he hooked us and changed speeds on us. Yeah, he’s definitely got potential.”

For the season, Eovaldi threw 119 1/3 innings at the big league level, and 154 1/3 counting Minor League numbers.

Acquired on July 25 from the Dodgers as part of the Hanley Ramirez trade, Eovaldi projects to be part of the Marlins’ rotation next year.

The first pitch was delayed three minutes due to a distraction detected near the “K Meter” that is literally built into the center-field wall to update the Marlins pitchers’ strikeouts.

“A door was open in the wall, a piece of wall,” Guillen said. “I’d never seen it before. I told the umpire not to worry about it, because nobody’s going to hit it there. Before that ball gets there, somebody will catch it because it’s too far away. That was the delay.”

Once the issue was resolved, Eovaldi struggled to get in sync, and he allowed three runs in a 37-pitch frame.

“Right by the ‘K Meter,’ a part of that wall is a gate,” Eovaldi said. “It was open. It was like a chain-link fence. It was just different.”

The right-hander walked Jimmy Rollins to open the game, and Juan Pierre singled to center. On the throw to third, Pierre advanced to second, avoiding the tag. Guillen disputed the call to no avail.

Chase Utley lifted a sacrifice fly, and Carlos Ruiz ripped a run-scoring double. An inability to turn a double play kept the inning alive for Philadelphia’s third run. Domonic Brown lined to Jose Reyes for the second out. Ruiz was well off the bag, but Reyes’ flip to Donovan Solano led him too much and sailed away, allowing Ruiz time to return to second. Nate Schierholtz drove in the third run with a single to left.

“I just wasn’t locating the ball very well,” Eovaldi said. “Falling behind in the count a lot. Not really locating my offspeed pitches. It was making the fastball easier to hit.”

Hamels retired the first 10 batters he faced before Bryan Petersen singled with one out in the fourth inning.

Reyes’ double put runners on double and third for Giancarlo Stanton, who tapped to third base. Petersen was thrown out at the plate by Pete Orr. An error by Hamels, trying to pick Reyes off second, moved runners to second and third.

Carlos Lee’s RBI single put Miami on the board, but on the play, Brown’s throw from right field and Ruiz’ reach tag nabbed Stanton for the final out.

“The outs at the plate were aggressive, I liked it,” Guillen said. “But we got men on second and third twice and we don’t bring the guy in. You’re talking about a three-run difference, and that could’ve tied the game. It would be a different baseball game.

“But like I say, this year you could put a lot of points on why we lost — a lot, starting with me — but I think the thing that killed this ballclub from April all the way to now is we don’t bring the guys in for easy RBIs.”

Nolasco gave up five runs as he labored through five innings in his 31st start of the year, a 9-5 defeat at the hands of the Phillies in front of 30,202 at Marlins Park on Saturday night.

“I got beat,” Nolasco said. “They gave me a ton of at-bats where they grinded, and kept getting good at-bats and good at-bats. They ended up winning the key battles. ”

Nolasco got off to a quick start, needing just 10 pitches to get through the first inning. Things didn’t get easier for the righty after that, though. He needed 40 pitches to get through the second inning, as the Phillies tagged him for two runs after Miami plated three in the first.

Twelve of Nolasco’s 40 pitches in the inning were fouled off by the Phillies, while the big hit in the frame came with two outs, when Pete Orr smacked a two-run double to right-center field.

“After the second inning I felt like I already threw six [innings],” Nolasco said. “They just flat out grinded out at-bats and did a great job at the plate.”

Nolasco’s rough outing, which required 100 pitches, came to an end after the fifth, when Philadelphia scored three more to take a lead it wouldn’t relinquish. The inning started out ominously for Nolasco. He had two strikes on Roy Halladay before the Phillies starter reached on a swinging bunt that stayed fair down the third-base line.

Jimmy Rollins followed with a single, and Chase Utley tied the game with a two-run single. The Phillies got their third two-out RBI of the night two batters later when Domonic Brown hit an RBI triple.

“It was a pretty tough day for [Nolasco] today,” Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen said. “He battled, every time he threw a strike they fouled a lot of balls off and he couldn’t finish off a couple hitters. It was a bad day for him.”

Nolasco finished his season at 12-13 with a 4.48 ERA, while making each of his scheduled starts. Despite the sour ending, he was relatively pleased with his season overall.

“Obviously this last start kind of changed some things numbers-wise, but I was healthy, rebounded and I’m just looking forward to next year,” Nolasco said. “The only thing I ask for every year is to stay healthy, make all my starts, and I was able to do that and keep my team in games as much as possible.”

The five runs off Nolasco negated another big night from Giancarlo Stanton, who drove in three runs and added his 36th homer of the season.

Stanton picked up two RBIs while the Marlins built their early lead and forced Halladay to throw 31 pitches in the first inning. Miami loaded the bases with no outs before Stanton singled to center to plate two.

The Marlins made it a 3-0 game on Rob Brantly’s RBI single.

“I felt like after that it got better,” said Halladay, who threw five innings and improved to 11-8 on the year. “It would have been nice to start without that first inning. From then on I felt like things were a lot better. I felt like mechanically they were better, and location they were better.”

After the Phillies made it a one-run game in the second, Stanton came through again against Halladay. The slugger launched a 411-foot solo shot to left field to lead off the frame. The home run gave Stanton homers in back-to-back home games for the first time since June 30 and July 1, also against the Phillies.

“Every time this kid is at the plate he’s in scoring position,” Guillen said. “I don’t want long ones, I want a lot of [home runs], and I got both — a lot and long ones.”

The Phillies scored four more runs against the Marlins’ bullpen in the final three innings. Stanton nearly sparked a late comeback for the Marlins. He led off the eighth with a strikeout, but reached on a wild pitch and advanced to second on a throwing error by Carlos Ruiz. Two walks later, the Marlins had the bases loaded with no outs.

Gil Velazquez cut the deficit to three runs with a one-out single, scoring Stanton, but the rally ended when Austin Kearns struck out on a wild pitch and Carlos Lee was thrown out at home on the play.

The Marlins stranded three more in the ninth after they brought the tying run to the plate with one out, but Lee popped out to second base and Greg Dobbs struck out to end a game that eclipsed the four-hour mark and saw a combined 13 pitchers throw 386 pitches.

“Very ugly game today,” Guillen said. “Very boring, crazy game. A long one. A lot of 3-2 counts on both sides, and a lot of guys threw a lot of pitches. They won, they made the best out of a bad day.”

By Tom Green / MLB.com

“I knew something was up when I tried to give the bat boy a [fist] pound and he didn’t even acknowledge me. So it’s like, ‘All right, OK,’ if he’s not going to do anything. But then I tried talking to [Tyler] Cloyd and Steve [LeRud], and nothing. So it was like, ‘OK, let’s see how long this lasts.’”

About five minutes later, after three more batters had taken their hacks and the inning had ended, Ruf’s teammates finally ended their silent-treatment prank and mobbed the newest Phillie to celebrate his first Major League hit — a home run.

“That was a long one,” manager Charlie Manuel said with a smile. “Some guys took two innings before they talked to him.”

Ruf’s second-inning solo shot was the first of three homers Philadelphia hit in a 6-3 win over the first-place Nationals, but it drew the most excitement among fans. The Phillies’ faithful had been clamoring to see Ruf play ever since the 26-year-old Nebraskan made headlines with 20 August home runs in Double-A.

The long ball came against Washington’s Ross Detwiler, whom he had faced before — in college. Ruf went 1-for-3 against Detwiler in 2007, when Ruf was at Creighton and the left-hander at Missouri State.

“Perfect,” Detwiler said. “Good guy to be the first one, right? I’m sure he got me in college, too.”

With the Phillies (78-76) all but out of postseason contention — they remain 5 1/2 games behind the Cardinals for the second National League Wild Card spot with eight to play — Manuel is giving Ruf a shot to show what he’s got. Ruf, a first baseman by trade, is by no means a finished product in left field but continues to work at it. He is set to hone his skills in left field in winter ball in a couple months.

But first, he will get a few more looks with the Phillies. Manuel said Ruf, who finished 2-for-3 on Tuesday, will be in the lineup again on Wednesday against Nationals left-hander John Lannan.

“I’m just trying to approach it like any other game,” Ruf said. “I’m not trying to look at it as a tryout by any means, but just going out there and playing baseball.” His key hit on Tuesday sparked a string of five unanswered Phillies’ runs. Just a batter after Howard’s RBI single broke a 1-1 tie in the fourth, Carlos Ruiz broke the game open with a three-run homer to cap a four-run frame. Three more hits will give Philadelphia’s All-Star catcher a career-high 116, adding yet another accolade to a career year.

Though he was not his sharpest, Cole Hamels pitched well enough to improve his record to 16-6, setting a new single-season career high in victories. The All-Star left-hander was unable to last six innings for just the third time in 30 starts, and the first time since July 27, needing 99 pitches to get through five innings. He gave up three runs on seven hits — all singles — and struck out six while walking just one.

The Nationals (93-61) made Hamels pay for a two-out walk in the second inning when Kurt Suzuki lined a single up the middle to drive in Danny Espinosa for the game’s first run. Back-to-back RBI singles from Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman highlighted Hamels’ fifth and final inning of work.

“I give their hitters a lot of credit,” Manuel said. “They were definitely making [Hamels] pitch. He’s pitched against them quite a bit in the past, and they were determined. … But he’s had a big year for us. I don’t know where we’d be without him. He’s been the guy that pitches the game that gets us out of trouble a lot.”

Domonic Brown chipped in with a solo home run, his fifth of the season, in the sixth, and Philadelphia’s much-improved bullpen held down the fort over the final four innings.

But ultimately, the game will likely be remembered for Ruf’s memorable first hit — and the treatment he got from his teammates afterward.

“That was very loving of them,” Ruf said. “The longest silent treatment of all time, I guess. It’s probably for all the times I suggested we do it to someone in Double-A. But I guess I had it coming to me.”

By Jake Kaplan / MLB.com

The fact he felt he even needed to watch speaks volumes about the Phillies’ turnaround.

“I’m proud of them,” he said following Friday’s 6-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves at Citizens Bank Park. “I’ve seen times when we could have folded the tent. It got close to that, but usually during a losing season it does. And that’s a mark of a bunch of guys who love to play and definitely want to win.”

The Cardinals lost to the Cubs in 11 innings, which gave the Phillies a bit of a boost before they stepped onto the field to face the Braves. The Cardinals loss and Phillies victory moved Philadelphia within three games of the second Wild Card with 11 games to play. Unfortunately for the Phillies, time is running out, and the Brewers and Dodgers, who separate the Cardinals and Phillies in the standings, also won.

Even if the Phillies finish 8-3, they need the Cardinals to finish no better than 5-6 to tie. And even if that happens, they might have to outplay the Brewers or Dodgers.

But why give up now? The Phillies were 14 games under .500 on July 13, and here they are, just three games back.

“It’s a great feeling,” said Ryan Howard, who hit a solo home run in the fourth inning to give the Phillies a 3-1 lead. “This is the end of the season. This is a playoff push right here. This is what you play for. To be in the hunt, with everything that’s gone on this year, being three games out right now, it’s a fun feeling. It’s an exciting time.”

Howard said he never gave up hope the Phillies could rebound.

“That’s why it’s a 162-game season,” he said. “A lot of people saw what happened last year. That’s why you play them all. You never know what happens.”

Howard has three home runs and eight RBIs in the last three days. He entered Friday with 52 RBIs in 56 games since July 19, which ranked third in baseball behind San Diego’s Chase Headley (59) and Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera (54). Howard is hitting just .228 overall, but .343 (23-for-67) with runners in scoring position.

He is getting the job done.

“I’m really just not trying to think about it, just trying to go with it,” Howard said. “Just kind of in between, I guess [with his swing], and now I just kind of found it a little bit. Not trying to question it.”

Howard was not the only Phillies player to hit a home run against Braves right-hander Tommy Hanson on Friday, but his production is a positive sign for the Phillies, who need to keep winning to have a chance at a sixth consecutive trip to the postseason.

The Phillies took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, when Juan Pierre tripled off the top of the wall in right-center field and scored on a fielder’s choice. The Braves tied the game in the second, but Kevin Frandsen hit a solo home run to left field in the third inning to make it 2-1.

Howard’s homer to right-center field in the fourth handed the Phillies a 3-1 lead. Carlos Ruiz followed with a solo homer to left field to make it 4-1.

It was the seventh time this season the Phillies have hit back-to-back home runs.

Chase Utley hit a solo homer to right in the ninth inning to give the Phillies an insurance run. Coincidentally, it was Howard’s 299th career homer and Utley’s 199th career homer. The Phillies’ four homers set a season high.

It would be plenty for Phillies right-hander Kyle Kendrick, who allowed five hits, two runs, one walk and struck out six in 6 2/3 innings. He improved to 6-2 with a 2.17 ERA in his last eight starts. The Phillies had the option of pitching Kendrick on Thursday against the Mets following a rainout Tuesday, but Manuel said they wanted Kendrick to face Atlanta.

It worked out nicely.

“Kendrick was pretty good,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “I take it back, he was really good. We knew going in, he was throwing more changeups. He did. He threw a lot of changeups to us. We just couldn’t time him.”

But the Phillies need to keep going. They basically need to win almost every game the rest of the way to have a chance.

“Keep going,” Manuel said. “We need to do that tomorrow.”

With a 16-1 loss to Philadelphia on Thursday, the Mets fell to 4-24 at Citi Field since the All-Star break. They’ve lost 11 of their last 12, have not scored more than three runs at home since Aug. 12 and were mathematically eliminated from postseason contention to the tune of 21 hits, including a ninth-inning grand slam.

“People paid money to see us tonight,” manager Terry Collins said. “Not that we’re going to win or not that we’re going to lose, 16-1, but not the way we lost it. This is the big leagues.”

When asked if he was embarrassed by his team’s performance, Collins’ answer was short and to the point: “I am.”

The Mets’ struggles at home have led to dwindling crowds — Thursday’s announced attendance of 20,010 was the smallest in Citi Field history — and a thick cloud of frustration at the ballpark that feels like it may seemingly never dissipate.

“You’ve still got to play and play the game right,” Collins said, adding that what he saw on Thursday night was “unacceptable.”

Mets starter Hefner surrendered six consecutive singles to open the game, then walked Kevin Fransden with the bases loaded to plate the fourth run of the inning. He left without recording an out — the first Mets pitcher to do so since John Maine threw just five pitches on May 20, 2010 — and by the time the inning came to a close was charged with seven of the eight runs the Phillies put up in the frame.

“I don’t want to sit through a whole nine-inning game that I started, that’s very disappointing,” Hefner said. “Words can’t even describe how embarrassing that is.”

So entered a parade of nine different relievers — an all-time franchise record.

The Phillies, meanwhile, needed just one. Starter Tyler Cloyd delivered eight innings of one-run ball, striking out six and allowing just three hits before B.J. Rosenberg came in finish the game in the ninth.

“He’s very poised,” Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard said of Cloyd. “He shows such great poise on the mound. He knows he’s not going to overpower guys. He’s just going to go out and execute his plan and just make pitches, try to hit his spots.”

Cloyd was able to cruise after entering the game with an eight-run lead, but the Mets’ bullpen held Philadelphia’s offense at bay for six innings, and allowed just one run in the eighth.

But the seven-run eruption in the ninth inning only bookended what was already a tough night.

“The record speaks for itself,” Mets third baseman David Wright said. “Obviously we’re not playing good baseball, and for some reason at home it’s been really difficult in the second half. I think you try and put your finger on it and try to figure out reasons, and we’ve just not been able to find any answers.”

The issue is identified — the offensive struggles at Citi Field have counteracted more than a handful of solid starts from the Mets’ rotation. New York was 46-40 heading into the Midsummer Classic, but is just 20-43 since.

“To have the bright spot that was the first half and have a ton of momentum going into the All-Star break, and then kind of the complete opposite and play as poorly as we have in the second half, it’s a punch to the gut,” Wright said. “Guys put a lot of time, a lot of effort and take a lot of pride in going out there and seeing results in this game, and we’re not seeing them.

“Guys are really upset, guys are embarrassed. And we should be because we have been very, very, bad in the second half.”

By Adam Rosenbloom / MLB.com

Still, none of that prepared him for what would come next. Nothing prepared Collins for the success — at times, the dominance — that Harvey would enjoy as a rookie, capping his two-month joyride with seven one-hit innings Wednesday in a 3-2 loss to the Phillies, a defeat that wasn’t the least bit his fault.

“We saw a different player when he got called up than anybody else we’ve seen,” Collins said. “All of the reports and all of the things we saw last spring certainly is not a true indication of the product. And when he got up here, we saw the product.”

That product was on display Wednesday at Citi Field for the final time in 2012, with the Mets ending Harvey’s season before he can tack any more innings onto his already unprecedented workload. Perhaps reaching back for something extra, Harvey struck out the final two batters he faced on the season on 97- and 96-mph fastballs.

But as has become their custom, the Mets did precious little to support him, and a one-run lead evaporated when substitute closer Josh Edgin served up Ryan Howard’s game-winning two-run homer in the ninth. After striking out the first two batters he faced, Edgin walked Chase Utley and grooved a belt-high fastball that Howard sent into the Pepsi Porch.

“I have to give props out to Chase first,” Howard said. “He had a huge at-bat. If he doesn’t have that at-bat, I’m not in that situation. I just caught up to a fastball and was able to get a big hit.”

“That’s what he’s paid to do,” Edgin said. “He’s a big guy, paid to hit home runs. I gave him a meatball, so he’s going to do it.”

Harvey threw seven innings, whiffing seven and allowing his only hit on a homer to Jimmy Rollins, the first batter of the game. Along the way, the rookie mowed down 12 consecutive Phillies in the middle innings, lowering his season ERA to 2.73.

With his season now complete, that is the number that will be stamped on next year’s baseball card.

“Part of the reason I don’t want to stop pitching is because I have so much fun with these guys,” Harvey said. “Even though we’re struggling right now, it’s still a big league ballclub. Being up here for the first time and getting to see how everyone plays the game every day, it’s been the biggest excitement for me. I’m going to miss it. The last two weeks are going to be tough.”

The Mets supported Harvey with a scant bit of offense, scratching out two runs against Phillies starter Cole Hamels despite striking out 10 times in six innings against the lefty. Three innings after Daniel Murphy cracked Hamels for an RBI single, David Wright gave the Mets their first lead with a solo homer to right-center field.

But it was not enough, preventing Harvey from winning for the fourth time in 10 starts.

“I wish we could have gotten a win for him,” Collins said. “But Matt Harvey ought to spend the winter feeling pretty good about himself.”

Harvey’s win-loss record is indeed misleading. When he looks back at that baseball card, the rookie will see that over 59 1/3 innings, he struck out 70, allowed 42 hits and walked 26. Only four other starting pitchers in the modern era struck out at least a batter per inning while spending their rookie eligibility and posting an ERA lower than Harvey’s 2.73 mark. Mets fans will recognize Dwight Gooden as one of them.

“I left it all out there,” Harvey said, calling his final start “a sad moment.”

That said, no one around the Mets clubhouse has been shy about saying that Harvey can and should improve, particularly with his command and efficiency. Harvey himself is a leading voice in that chorus.

But for the Mets’ most-hyped prospect since Mike Pelfrey, Act I could not have gone much better.

“He’s got an inner confidence about him that you don’t see from a lot of younger players,” Wright said of Harvey, a lock to open next season in the rotation. “In Spring Training, he was not wide-eyed. There was no awe. He works incredibly hard. He’s relatively quiet but he gets along with everybody. I think it’s a great mix of that confidence — not a cockiness, but a confidence — and also a feeling that he knows he belongs.”

It would help, of course, if the Mets would take care of their knuckleballer as well. Recently they have not, in a trend that Monday’s game punctuated. Dickey was strong yet again at Citi Field, holding the Phillies to three runs in seven innings while striking out eight. But the Mets could not back him against left-hander Cliff Lee, dropping a 3-1 game to the Phillies.

“It’s unfulfilling,” Dickey said. “I’m not leaving the park satisfied, that’s for sure.”

Trouble surfaced early for Dickey, who put a runner on base when catcher Mike Nickeas dropped his game-opening strikeout pitch to Jimmy Rollins. Dickey’s own throwing error moved Rollins to second base, allowing him to score on Chase Utley’s sacrifice fly to shallow center field after a groundout.

Dickey gave the Phillies two more runs on solo homers from Rollins in the fifth inning and Domonic Brown in the seventh, both on balls that barely cleared the right-field wall. Rollins’ homer was so close to the fence that umpires initially ruled it a triple, before consulting video replay and overturning the call.

“I felt pretty good against him,” Brown said. “That’s all it was — seeing it and hitting it.”

Those homers left the Mets in a bind against Lee, who began grooving as soon as he wriggled out of a two-on, one-out jam in the first. The left-hander struck out Lucas Duda to end that threat, beginning a run of six strikeouts in an eight-batter span.

Lee completed eight innings, giving up nothing more than Daniel Murphy’s bloop RBI single in the fifth.

That forced Dickey to take a hard-luck loss, significantly reducing his chances for a 20-win season with only three starts remaining. But the knuckleballer’s effort did slightly boost his NL Cy Young Award credentials, lowering his ERA by one one-hundredth of a point and his WHIP by one one-thousandth of a point, while moving him within one strikeout of the NL lead. Along the way, Dickey became the 10th Mets pitcher to strike out 200 batters in a season.

“You feel for him because all he’s done is give himself a chance to win a baseball game,” manager Terry Collins said. “We’ll go back at the end of the year and recount the number of games where he didn’t get a decision, or he allowed us to have an opportunity to win, and hopefully it doesn’t get back to bite him too bad.”

How it would bite him would be in Cy Young voting, where on paper at least, Dickey may be one of two competitors left standing.

Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw might have mounted the strongest offensive against Dickey’s campaign, considering the left-hander’s reigning Cy status, his league-leading strikeout total and his nine consecutive quality starts heading into this week. Kershaw was coming on strong. But a hip injury has put the rest of his season in jeopardy, potentially removing him from the Cy Young picture.

The next-closest competitor — and quite possibly the favorite heading into September — used to be Cincinnati’s Johnny Cueto. But Cueto has gone 0-3 with an 8.22 ERA over his last three starts, which, combined with his relatively low strikeout total, has effectively removed him from the race.

Atlanta’s lights-out closer, Craig Kimbrel, could make a run at the award, but his status as a relief pitcher will dampen his standing on many voters’ ballots. Though Kimbrel could easily finish in second or third place overall, only one reliever has won a Cy Young in the past 19 years. History is not on his side.

That leaves only Washington’s Gio Gonzalez, who beat the Mets last week but lost his next start against the Braves, and has now walked nine batters over his last two outings. Gonzalez leads the NL in wins but trails Dickey in nearly every other meaningful statistical category. It is also feasible that Gonzalez could lose a start down the stretch as the Nationals line him up for Game 1 of the Division Series.

With three starts to go, Dickey is aware of that general Cy conversation, if not all its particulars.

“That does not change the way I go about my business,” Dickey said. “It doesn’t do me any good to wish bad for them or good for them or whatever else. I just need to take care of me, and that’s what I’ve tried to do consistently.”

By Anthony DiComo / MLB.com

After squandering a four-run lead and watching their seven-game winning streak halted in the series opener Thursday night, the Phillies scored early and often and banged out 16 hits to keep the Astros at bay and cruise to a 12-6 win at Minute Maid Park.

While Hamels was holding the Astros to seven hits and four runs (three earned) in seven innings for his career-high-tying 15th win of the season, Houston starter Edgar Gonzalez couldn’t continue the good run of success he had in his first two starts with the club, both of which were on the road.

Gonzalez allowed six hits and five runs in four innings, and the Astros’ bullpen allowed the game to get out of hand by allowing seven runs in five innings.

“Unfortunately for the bullpen, it was a rough outing for most of them out there,” Astros interim manager Tony DeFrancesco said. “We had a couple of good games and a couple of bad games. If we can be consistent coming out of the ‘pen and shut them down, that could keep us in the game. That’s a good team with a solid lineup and they had a couple of big home runs.”

Jimmy Rollins led off the game with a homer for the Phillies — extended his club record to 42 leadoff homers — and Domonic Brown provided the kill shot with a two-run homer in the seventh inning that put the Phillies ahead, 9-4.

The Astros got homers from Matt Downs and Justin Maxwell and lost despite scoring six runs for the second game in a row against the Phillies.

“If you get four runs off Cole Hamels, it’s a big night offensively,” Downs said. “It’s always tough to put runs up against a guy like that or Cliff Lee and Doc Halladay. They swung the bats extremely well tonight and you take your hat off to them.”

Hamels snapped a three-game losing streak against the Astros and has now thrown eight consecutive quality starts since Aug. 2.

“Just being able to come out and put up the runs early is huge, just because you want to just get the momentum back,” he said. “Especially after last night, you want to get things rolling again and get the positive mojo going so we can get back into how we know we’ve been playing baseball for the last week.”

After Rollins led off the game with a homer, Gonzalez allowed the next three batters to reach on a walk, a single and double, and all three scored. It was 4-0, Phillies.

“In the first inning I was struggling with the command of the fastball,” Gonzalez said. “I couldn’t hit the corners. They’re good hitters and they got me.”

The Astros, who left the bases loaded in the second, took advantage of an error in the first to score an unearned run, and Downs hit a two-run homer in the fourth to pull Houston to within two runs, 5-3.

“He kind of left a cutter back over the plate a little bit,” Downs said. “He pounded one in my first at-bat, and my second at-bat he left one out over the plate, enough for me to get the barrel on it. He works that cutter to both sides of the plate, works that changeup, works his fastball. He mixes all three pitches well.”

Some bad luck doomed the Astros in the fifth. With the bases loaded and two outs, John Mayberry hit a comebacker to the mound that caromed off the leg of reliever Fernando Rodriguez and rolled toward right field. Second baseman Jose Altuve scurried to field the ball and threw late to home as the second runner crossed the plate, giving the Phillies a 7-3 lead.

“It seems every time he comes in, it’s a ball like that — off his glove, off his foot,” DeFrancesco said of Rodriguez. “There was a deflection and two runs scored. That kind of knocked us out of the game there. That was a big out we were trying to get with two outs.”

Maxwell clubbed his 15th homer of the season with two outs in the fifth inning for Houston, clanging it off the left-field foul pole, but Brown hit a two-run homer to right field in the seventh off Jose Valdez to stretch Philadelphia’s lead to 9-4.

The Phillies tacked on three more runs in the eighth off Enerio Del Rosario, including a two-run single by Ryan Howard. Despite using 25 relief pitchers in the last five games, DeFrancesco says his young bullpen isn’t weary.

“I don’t think it’s fatigue,” DeFrancesco said. “They’re trying to establish themselves every day to compete and grind it out. There’s so much pressure. Sometimes you see who’s hitting on the other team and you see these big names you grew up watching, and all of a sudden you’re facing them. All this stuff we have to overcome. We’re giving every guy an opportunity to prove they belong in this uniform at the end of the season.”

Jimmy Rollins is hitting baseballs everywhere, and the Phillies are making an improbable climb from a crater of a deficit in the standings. The same thing happened in 2007, when Rollins won the National League Most Valuable Player Award and the Phillies overcame a seven-game deficit with 17 games left to win their first NL East championship in 14 years.

Rollins had two big hits in Wednesday’s 3-1 victory over the Miami Marlins at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies have won a season-high seven consecutive games to improve to 72-71, the first time they have had a winning record since June 3. With the Cardinals’ 3-2 loss to the Padres, Philadelphia moved to within three games of an NL Wild Card spot with 19 games to play.

“We’re in it,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “I’d say we’re dead in it, yeah.”

It is a remarkable feat considering the Phillies stood at 37-51 on July 13 and traded Hunter Pence, Shane Victorino and Joe Blanton a couple weeks later. Also consider for a second that less than a week ago, the Phillies stood eight games behind the Cardinals.

“I saw the manager early today,” Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen said. “He said they pitch better [than before]. They catch the ball better, and they hit when they have to hit. That’s the reason they’re back in the pennant race.”

Rollins is leading the way offensively.

The shortstop hit a leadoff single in the sixth inning to break up Marlins right-hander Josh Johnson’s no-hitter. He then scored on John Mayberry’s two-out single to center field to tie the game at 1.

Mayberry, too, has come on. He is hitting .341 (30-for-88) with five doubles, five home runs, 16 RBIs and a .995 OPS in his last 24 games. He hit just .229 (66-for-288) with 17 doubles, nine home runs, 26 RBIs and a .653 OPS in his first 107 games.

Pinch-hitter Pete Orr has just four plate appearances since the Phillies promoted him from Triple-A Lehigh Valley last week, but he came up with one of the biggest hits of the week when he hit a two-out single in the seventh inning against Johnson.

“It’s always fun when something like that happens,” said Orr, who is hitting .438 (7-for-16) in his career against Johnson.

The hit proved big because it brought up Rollins, who smacked a 2-0 fastball into the stands in right field for a two-run home run to give the Phillies a 3-1 lead.

Rollins took serious heat last month when Manuel pulled him from an Aug. 30 game against the Mets for not hustling on a popup. Coincidence or not, he is hitting .314 (16-for-51) with two doubles, four home runs, nine RBIs and a .934 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) since.

“Jimmy can hurt you,” Manuel said. “Jimmy knows how to hit. He’s got a good stroke. You get some guys that want to throw some fastballs to him, he’s got enough patience to get some good balls to hit at times. He can definitely hurt you. You get the ball down on him, yeah, he’s got good pop.”

Rollins’ homer allowed Cliff Lee to improve to 5-7. Lee allowed four hits and one unearned run, walking one and striking out six in seven innings. He is 3-0 with a 1.73 ERA in his past six starts. Phillippe Aumont, one of the players received from Seattle when they traded Lee in Dec. 2009, pitched a scoreless eighth inning. Jonathan Papelbon pitched a scoreless ninth to pick up his 34th save.

The Phillies’ bullpen has thrown 16 1/3 scoreless innings.

“It was a well-pitched game from start to finish by both teams,” Lee said.

But like Manuel told Guillen before the game, the Phillies hit better, pitched better and played better defense. That is why they are back in the race.

“I mean, I think it’s possible [to make the playoffs],” Lee said. “No doubt. We’ve got a few teams ahead of us, but all we can control is what we can control. If we continue to play the way we have since the All-Star break, really, we’ve got a pretty good chance.”

By Todd Zolecki / MLB.com