If his right arm isn’t healed in time for his next start Andrew Norwell Jersey , maybe Vince Velasquez can pitch with his left.

Ambidextrous, indeed.

Hit on his pitching arm by a line drive, Velasquez made a dazzling throw with his left hand, and Philadelphia overcame an early injury to its starting pitcher to beat the Washington Nationals 3-2 on Saturday night.

”It is well-known he is one of our best all-around athletes,” Phillies manager Gabe Kapler said. ”You just would never predict that.”

Velasquez was struck in the forearm by Adam Eaton’s liner in the second inning. He dropped his glove, hustled to retrieve the ball as it deflected toward third base, and unleashed a strong toss with his opposite arm that nipped the speedy Eaton at first for the final out.

”I tried to finish the play,” Velasquez said.

The Phillies pitcher actually spent his junior season in high school as a lefty-throwing center fielder due to bone chips in his pitching arm that prevented him from taking the mound.

And on Friday night, Velasquez startled Phillies first baseman Carlos Santana by throwing a ball to him left-handed from the dugout in between innings.

”Kind of warmed up for that play today,” Velasquez joked.

So, Velasquez knew he could throw left-handed – he just didn’t know if he could make an accurate toss.

”I actually surprised myself throwing a strike right there,” he said.

After completing the play, Velasquez then dropped to the ground, writhing in pain and clutching his right arm. He was pulled from the game with a bruise, having allowed one run and three hits.

X-rays were negative, a better result than he anticipated.

”I thought something was broken,” he said. ”Thanks to God, nothing is severe.”

Kapler said Velasquez would be further evaluated on Sunday. The pitcher said it was ”up in the air” whether he would be able to take his next turn in the rotation.

”We’ll see how it feels,” he said.

Victor Arano (1-0) followed Velasquez with two scoreless innings.

Odubel Herrera homered and Jorge Alfaro and Aaron Altherr had RBI doubles as the Phillies bounced back from a 17-7 loss. Anthony Rendon homered for the Nationals, who went deep seven times in Friday night’s romp at Citizens Bank Park, but managed just eight hits against six Philadelphia pitchers.

”I thought we were going to score more than two runs after yesterday’s performance,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. ”We had our chances.”

Yacksel Rios kept Philadelphia in front by getting out of a jam in the eighth. After Adam Morgan allowed the first two runners to reach on a single and a walk Austin Seferian-Jenkins Jersey , Rios entered and got Rendon to line out to right, Juan Soto to pop out and Mark Reynolds to ground out.

Rookie Seranthony Dominguez pitched a scoreless ninth for his seventh save in his eighth chances. Dominguez retired the first two batters before pinch-hitter Daniel Murphy doubled to right, but the right-hander retired Eaton on a flyball.

”Cool as a cucumber,” Kapler said. ”A special performance.”

Jeremy Hellickson (2-1) returned to the mound for Washington after being sidelined since June 4 with a right hamstring strain. The veteran right-hander allowed three runs on seven hits in 4 2/3 innings with four strikeouts and two walks.

RED-HOT RENDON

Rendon is batting .396 in his last 13 games, with hits in 12 of those contests. His 85 career hits against Philadelphia are tied for his most against any opponent.

WHAT A THROW

Alfaro upped his major-league lead to 15 base runners caught stealing when he nailed the swift Trea Turner for the final out in the fifth. Turner entered second in the majors with 22 steals, but was easily out.

”Alfaro threw a bullet,” Martinez said.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Nationals: RHP Stephen Strasburg (right shoulder inflammation), out since June 10, threw a bullpen session on Saturday. … Washington transferred 1B Ryan Zimmerman, who has been out since May 10 with a strained right oblique, to the 60-day DL.

UP NEXT

The teams close out the four-game series on Sunday afternoon with Washington LHP Gio Gonzalez (6-5, 3.68) facing Phillies RHP Jake Arrieta (5-6, 3.54).

As they normally do when the opposition says something you might post on a bulletin board, the New England Patriots reacted diplomatically Monday to Jacksonville’s Jalen Ramsey guaranteeing his team is ”going to the Super Bowl and we gonna win that b—-.”

”Man, that guy’s really good,” said a smiling Pro Bowl special teamer Matthew Slater, asked to react to Ramsey. ”He should be confident, because he’s very, very good.

”The good lord made that guy and he said, `let there be corner’ and there he is, so I’d be confident if I were him as well.”

That’s just the way the Patriots, who never say anything negative about their opponents Niles Paul Jersey , handle these things.

Safety Duron Harmon, asked the same question, said, ”Hey, man, Jalen Ramsey’s a good player. He talks a lot of trash, that’s part of his game and you can’t take it away from him. He’s confident – he should be confident in his team. He has a really good football team.

”The top two AFC teams are left and he’s a part of one of them, so . his approach to the game is different than ours, but we can’t knock him for it,” Harmon said. ”We know they’re going to come ready to play and we just gotta match their type of physicality, and also just their emotion and their readiness to get ready to play.”

The Patriots, appearing in their seventh straight AFC title game and seeking the sixth Super Bowl trip of the Bill Belichick/Tom Brady (in their 12th title game), got an early taste of the Jaguars way back in August. That’s when the teams held three days of joint practices before a preseason game won by Jacksonville 31-24.

”That was like eons ago, when you think about the course of a football season and how long it is and what happens over the course of the football season,” said Slater. ”You look at those joint practices, for example, Jalen Ramsey wasn’t even out there and this guy . he’s elite. There are different dynamics to both teams. I don’t know how much we’ll look at those practices and that preseason game; I’m sure we’ll take a look at it, but both teams are very different.”

Veteran offensive lineman Nate Solder was impressed with what he saw from the Jaguars on Sunday.

”Their front stood out to me, the way they get after the quarterback, the way they stop the run . they were ball hawks, went after the ball on every play,” he said.

Looking back on the Jaguars in August and now in the conference title game Donte Moncrief Jersey , Solder said, ”It’s a unique scenario, but I’m not surprised because we knew that they were good then as we know that they’re good now.”

Asked about how impressive it was for the Jaguars to go into Pittsburgh and win, Patriots coach Bill Belichick said, ”Very impressive; yeah. They did a great job. Again, they do a lot of things well, play good defense, can rush the passer, can stop the run, turn the ball over, can run the ball, have a lot of explosive players in the passing game, they’re good in the kicking game, they’re very aggressive in the kicking game.”

”They’re well coached. I know that, for sure. They’ve handled the situations that have come up in those games very well – fourth-and-1 in the first quarter, things like that. They’ve really done a good job, so yeah, it’s impressive.”

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