Nationals, Phillies work late

On any other night, last night’s Washington Nationals game against Philadelphia would have been called. But the Phillies had playoff implications on the line, and the teams waited through a 4-hour, 27-minute rain delay before starting. The game did not end in time for this edition.

During the longest rain delay in Washington Nationals history, the stadium cleaning crew started picking up trash in RFK’s upper bowl before the game even started.

“We were playing this game, whatever it takes,” Nationals president Stan Kasten said.

By the time left-hander Mike O’Connor’s first pitch crossed the plate, it was 11:32 p.m. and a few hundred die-hard fans — mostly Phillies rooters — remained. Once the rain stopped, those Philadelphia fans rushed down to the field-level seats because RFK’s ushers were long gone.

Philadelphia’s entered the game just 11/2 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League’s wild-card race. With this game being the final meeting of the season between the two clubs and the Phillies in Miami today for the first of a season-ending, three-game series with the Florida Marlins, the game had to be played to avoid a Monday makeup.

Note — The Nationals signed a two-year extension yesterday to their player development contract with the Vermont Lake Monsters of the short-season Class A New York-Penn League.