ATLANTA — Craig Stammen pitched four perfect innings after ace Stephen Strasburg left with a strained muscle on his right side, and the Washington Nationals beat the Atlanta Braves 3-2 Friday night.
Strasburg lasted two innings before leaving the shortest outing of his career. He is headed back to Washington to be examined.
Denard Span tripled twice and scored two runs for Washington, which snapped a two-game skid and trimmed its second-place deficit in the NL East to 4½ games behind the Braves.
Strasburg left with a 2-1 lead. He allowed two hits and one run — a homer by Freddie Freeman — with no walks and two strikeouts. Stammen (3-1) shut down the Braves from there.
Tyler Clippard escaped a bases-loaded jam in the seventh and Drew Storen worked a scoreless eighth before Rafael Soriano converted his 15th save in 18 chances.
Bryce Harper missed his fifth straight game with bursitis in his left knee.
Julio Teheran (3-2) allowed seven hits and three runs with a career-high nine strikeouts in 6 2-3 innings.
REDS 6, PIRATES 0
PITTSBURGH — Johnny Cueto allowed one hit over eight dominant innings to pitch Cincinnati past Pittsburgh.
Jay Bruce and Brandon Phillips hit solo home runs for the Reds, who cooled off the Pirates behind their ace. Cueto (3-0) struck out six and walked one to improve to 13-4 against Pittsburgh.
Wandy Rodriguez (6-3) gave up five hits and walked three in seven innings.
The Reds broke it open with four runs off reliever Mike Zagurski, a rare hiccup by baseball's best bullpen through the first third of the season as the two rivals moved into a second-place tie behind St. Louis in the NL Central.
BREWERS 8, PHILLIES 5
PHILADELPHIA — Jonathan Lucroy went 5 for 5 with two home runs and four RBIs as Milwaukee battered a struggling Cole Hamels to beat Philadelphia and snap its longest losing streak of the season at six games.
Yovani Gallardo (4-5) overcame a shaky first inning to stop a four-game skid, the worst of his career. Yuniesky Betancourt added three hits and an RBI for the Brewers, who finished 6-22 in May to tie the 1969 Seattle Pilots (August) for the worst month in franchise history.
Francisco Rodriguez pitched a scoreless ninth for his second save.
Domonic Brown had two homers and four RBIs for the Phillies. Brown has six home runs in his last five games and finished May with 12 homers. Jimmy Rollins also went deep for Philadelphia.
Hamels (1-9), who signed a $144 million, six-year contract last season, gave up seven runs (six earned) on a career-worst 12 hits in five-plus innings.
CUBS 7, DIAMONDBACKS 2
CHICAGO — Scott Hairston hit a grand slam, Matt Garza got his first victory of the season and Chicago extended its winning streak to five games by defeating Arizona.
Alfonso Soriano had a two-run homer and Cody Ransom added a solo shot for the Cubs, who have won five straight for the first time since winning seven in a row from July 31 to Aug. 6, 2011.
Hairston's grand slam was the second in two games for the Cubs. Chicago pitcher Travis Wood hit one Thursday against the White Sox. It also gave the Cubs grand slams in consecutive games at Wrigley Field for the first time since Jim Hickman and Burt Hooton did it Sept. 15-16, 1972, against the Mets.
Garza (1-0), making his third start of the season since coming back from a strained back muscle, pitched seven innings and allowed two runs and six hits for his first win since July 15.
Wade Miley (3-5) went seven innings and allowed seven runs and seven hits. He has lost four straight decisions and given up 22 earned runs over his past four starts.
MARLINS 5, METS 1
MIAMI — Jacob Turner pitched seven scoreless innings in his season debut and Marcell Ozuna had three hits to help Miami halt a nine-game losing streak with a win over New York.
Pinch-hitter Jordan Brown hit a two-run double, and Ed Lucas and Jeff Mathis each drove home a run in the pivotal seventh as the Marlins won for the third time in 19 games.
After sweeping four Subway Series games from the New York Yankees, the Mets had their longest winning streak of the season snapped at five.
Recalled from Triple-A New Orleans before the game, Turner (1-0) allowed five hits and walked one while striking out three.
Shaun Marcum (0-6) yielded four runs in 6 2-3 innings, becoming the first Mets pitcher to open a season with six consecutive losses since Mike Pelfrey went 0-7 in 2007.
DODGERS 7, ROCKIES 5 (10)
DENVER — The Los Angeles Dodgers recovered from a ninth-inning blown save and scored two runs off Rockies closer Rafael Betancourt in the top of the 10th to beat slumping Colorado.
Carl Crawford scored from third on Luis Cruz's hard comebacker that bounced off the back leg of Betancourt (1-3) and dribbled toward the third base side. Juan Uribe followed with a run-scoring single.
Brandon League (1-2) picked up the win despite allowing Todd Helton's two-run homer that tied the game at 5 in the ninth.
Ronald Belisario pitched a perfect 10th for his first save since Aug. 29, 2012, also at Colorado.
Before that, Clayton Kershaw allowed three earned runs and eight hits over seven-plus innings. He also hit a two-run double.
INTERLEAGUE
PADRES 4, BLUE JAYS 3 (17)
SAN DIEGO — Clayton Richard earned his first win of the season by pitching two innings in relief and Jesus Guzman singled home the winning run with two outs in the 17th to give San Diego a victory over Toronto.
Richard (1-5), who had been scheduled to start Saturday night, came on to start the 16th. He came in 0-5 with an 8.35 ERA in seven starts and recently spent time on the disabled list with an intestinal virus. He gave up one hit and struck out two in two innings in his first relief appearance since May 2009 with the Chicago White Sox.
Rookie Jedd Gyorko's third hit of the night, a one-out single, caromed off third base into shallow left. Gyorko was sacrificed to second by Richard and scored when Guzman singled up the middle off Todd Redmond (0-1).
The winning hit came three innings after the 14th-inning stretch. The game lasted 4 hours, 58 minutes.
The Blue Jays and Padres weren't alone playing deep into the night, though. After nearly five hours of rain delays, the Tampa Bay-Cleveland game ended about 20 minutes before this one did — one night after the Royals beat the Cardinals in a rain-delayed game that finished at 3:14 a.m. CDT.
Toronto's Colby Rasmus had a two-run homer among his season-high four hits and robbed Yonder Alonso of a solo shot. Edwin Encarnacion also connected off Jason Marquis.
Gyorko hit a two-run double to help the Padres rally from a 3-0 deficit.
