Today in the NL East: Morning baseball in D.C.

The Phillies were crushed in embarrassing fashion Tuesday in New York, losing 11-1 to the Mets (see story). Meanwhile in Lehigh Valley, Ryan Howard enjoyed his best rehab game yet, going 2 for 3 with a home run and four RBIs for the IronPigs (see story).

All five NL East teams are back in action on this Fourth of July:

Giants at Nationals, 11:05 a.m.
The Washington Nationals can certainly recognize outstanding young pitching when they see it.

Their hitters likely will when they step into the box Wednesday.

San Francisco Giants left-hander Madison Bumgarner will look to provide an encore to the best performance of his career when these first-place teams continue their series with a July 4 morning start in the nation's capital.

A rotation currently comprised only of pitchers 28 or younger has posted a major league-best 3.25 ERA and keyed the Nationals' revival.

Edwin Jackson (4-4, 3.57) will try to pitch the Nationals to a fourth straight home win.

Marlins at Brewers, 4:10 p.m.
The Miami Marlins are having problems on the road, but they continue to have even bigger issues against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Coming off another dramatic loss, the Marlins will try to avoid matching their longest road losing streak of the season Wednesday while again attempting to beat the Brewers for the first time since 2010.

Miami (38-42) has lost six in a row as the visitor, one shy of its season-worst road skid April 11-26.

It's not surprising that the slide has extended halfway through this four-game series in Milwaukee, given that the Marlins have dropped 10 in a row to the Brewers (38-42) dating back to September 2010. That includes six losses at Miller Park - most recently Tuesday's heartbreaking 13-12, 10-inning defeat.

Josh Johnson (5-5, 3.80 ERA) opposes Randy Wolf (2-6, 5.78), who tries for his first win since April 30.

Braves at Cubs, 7:10 p.m.
Hours after being named to an eighth All-Star team in the final year of his all-but-certain Hall of Fame career, Chipper Jones put together a performance reminiscent of his prime.

Building on it Wednesday night, however, could be difficult, as the Chicago Cubs give the ball to Paul Maholm, who has regularly frustrated Jones and the Atlanta Braves.

The Braves (42-38) snapped Chicago's season-best four-game winning streak with their second victory in six contests, remaining five games back of NL East-leading Washington. Atlanta improved to 17-2 when Jones drives in a run.

Jones is riding a season-best 10-game hitting streak, during which he's batting .432 with seven doubles, but he's hitless in nine career at-bats against Maholm (5-6, 4.84 ERA).

Atlanta hopes scheduled starter Randall Delgado (4-8, 4.52) can solve his recent problems Wednesday. The Braves have lost Delgado's last four starts and 10 of his last 13.

© 2012 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.