WATCH: Phillies Outfielder Aaron Altherr Fires 2 Strike Outs

The bad news: the Phillies lost 15-1 to the Nationals on Wednesday night, and just about everybody had an off night.

The good news: Phillies reserve outfielder Aaron Altherr, to the delight of everyone remaining in the stadium, including the Phillies bullpen, struck out two hitters in the bottom of the ninth inning.

It's not uncommon for position players to take the hill in games that are truly lost causes, especially as the Phillies hope to reserve their already tired bullpen for when they can make a more meaningful difference later this week.

So manager Gabe Kapler turned to Altherr, a five-tool player at his best, with an arm that's nothing to scoff at.

The first batter he faced was Nationals second baseman Brian Dozier. Altherr didn't look a bit out of a place as he blew a 90 mile per hour fastball by him.

After the strikeout, he tossed the ball into the dugout as a souvenir.

He then let up a double to Howie Kendrick, got Juan Soto to ground out, then a single to Matt Adams. Kendrick came in to score. But with two outs in four hitters, he'd already fared better than most of the Phillies arms that night.

And with two strikes on Yan Gomes, he turned to the heater again, hitting 90 on the radar gun as Gomes swung and missed. The scattered crowd, despite being down 15-0 at that point, went wild.

There were some other nice accolades that came along with Altherr's performance, too:

While being able to throw 90 miles per hour is not an exceedingly rare trait, especially amongst power-armed outfielders like Altherr, it's an entirely different thing to throw it off the mound, accurately, against live hitting.

The Phillies would ultimately get their lone run of the evening in the bottom of the ninth against Nationals reliever Trevor Rosenthal. Altogether, between the middle of Tuesday night's game and the bottom of the ninth Wednesday, the Nationals scored 24 unanswered runs against the Phillies.

Yet still there was something interesting about that half of the inning too, making it perhaps the most interesting ninth inning of a 15-1 game you can picture: it marked the first time Rosenthal was able to record an out in 2019, in his fifth appearance. In fact, Andrew Knapp's strikeout Wednesday was the first out Rosenthal recorded since Aug. 2017, as he missed the entire 2018 season due to Tommy John surgery.

The Phillies get a day off to regroup Thursday before a kinder weekend series with the 3-9 Miami Marlins. Even after two consecutive losses, the Phillies remain tied for first in the NL East, sitting at 7-4 along with the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets.