WASHINGTON -- Leave Maikel Franco right where he is.

He homered and intentionally walked three times in Tuesday night’s 8-2 victory at Nationals Park, joining Albert Pujols (twice), Miguel Cabrera and Paul Goldschmidt as the only players to homer once and intentionally walk three times in a game since 2009.

Franco has homered three times in the season’s first four games, each homer coming from the eight-hole in the Phillies’ lineup. Spud Davis (1930) and Andy Seminick (1948) hold the club record with 13 homers out of the No. 8 hole. Del Crandall hit a big league record 22 homers out of the eight-hole with the 1955 Milwaukee Braves.

“I think he’s cementing his role in the eight spot,” manager Gabe Kapler said with a chuckle.

Franco has intentionally walked five times this season, too. He became the first Phillies’ player to intentionally walk three times in a game since Ryan Howard on April 14, 2007. Howard intentionally walked three times in a game three times in his career. Dick Allen (twice), Garry Maddox (once), Clay Dalrymple (once), Del Ennis (once) and Nick Etten (once) also accomplished the feat.

Franco entered Wednesday’s series finale batting .545 (6-for-11) with three homers, eight RBIs, a .706 on-base percentage and a 1.364 slugging percentage.

“There’s some strategy to this,” Kapler said. “Maikel is seeing a lot of pitches. If he doesn’t lead the league in on-base percentage at this point … look, I think it’s caused him to be patient. He’s smiling a lot. He’s especially confident. He’s getting a couple of pitches to hit per game and he’s doing damage on them. I don’t think we have to make any changes to the lineup.”

In fact, Kapler has not changed his lineup once in the season’s first five games. It might not sound remarkable, but consider that Kapler did not use a single lineup more than five times in the entire 2018 season.

Eflin’s slide piece is working

Bryce Harper got the majority of the attention on Tuesday night and deservedly so, but Phillies right-hander Zach Eflin tied a career-high nine strikeouts in five scoreless innings. He allowed only three hits and walked one. It was an encouraging start from Eflin, especially considering how much focus there has been on the club's rotation entering the season.

Eflin threw 85 pitches, including 32 sliders (37.6 percent). He has thrown his slider more in only two previous starts. He got five swings and misses on the pitch, and 12 swings and misses overall. It was one of his best swing-and-miss rates (31.6 percent) of his career.

“We knew that was going to be a good weapon,” Eflin said. “If you had told me how many I would throw -- I know I threw a lot -- I probably wouldn’t have thought of throwing that many. But when it’s working I’ve obviously got to go with it, especially because it’s a compliment of my fastball.”