By DAN GELSTON
AP Sports Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Miami Marlins fouled pitches, took pitches and ballooned Vince Velasquez’s pitch count.
The final pitch of each at-bat was nearly the same — strike three.
Velasquez and the Phillies pitchers combined for 17 strikeouts and Philadelphia beat the Marlins 3-1 on Tuesday night.
Velasquez (5-1) struck out 10 in five innings, his highest total since he fanned 16 San Diego Padres in a shutout April 14. Velasquez has not pitched out of the seventh inning since that game and was lifted against the Marlins after 103 pitches.
“We got his pitch count up but weren’t able to do much with him after that,” Marlins left fielder Christian Yelich said.
Tommy Joseph hit his first major league homer and had three hits for Philadelphia. He hit cleanup in just his third big-league game and homered in the second inning off Marlins starter Wei-Yin Chen (3-2). Joseph’s single in the sixth helped make it 3-0 when Marlins center fielder Marcell Ozuna booted the ball and allowed a runner to score.
Jeanmar Gomez allowed a run in the ninth and earned his 15th save.
Velasquez entered the game having fanned 49 of the 171 batters he faced, a 28.7 percent strikeout rate that was seventh-best in the National League. He struck out the side in the second inning, then whiffed two batters each in the third, fourth and fifth innings.
The Marlins made him work for those strikes. He put the first two hitters on base in the first inning before he retired the next three. Velasquez allowed a two-out triple and a walk in the third, then struck out Justin Bour to end the inning.
Joseph received the good-natured silent treatment when he returned to the dugout after he lined a 1-2 pitch that hit the foul pole in left field.
Marlins manager Don Mattingly didn’t expect the effects of the loss to linger.
“They seem pretty even-keeled about the way they go about their business,” he said. “You don’t really feel a difference when we’ve lost a couple in a row.”
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