PHILADELPHIA – The Phillies began their longest homestand of the season Thursday night, a 10-game stretch in which the Pirates, Rockies and White Sox visit.

That’s not exactly, in baseball parlance, a murderer’s row of guests.

But the Phillies hadn’t quite been swatting that baseball with particular aplomb while starting the season 6-6.

As they took the damp field at Citizens Bank Park to open a four-game set against resurgent Pittsburgh, which did arrive flaunting a National League-best 9-3 record, the Phillies' previous 16 hits had been singles.

“This team is built to slug,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson confidently said before the game. “We’re waiting on it. It’s coming.”

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Its arrival came just several hours later, in triplicate, during a 5-1 win that delighted an audience of 33,362.

That streak did grow to 19 straight singles before Alex Bohm provided some long-awaited and much-appreciated pop. His fourth-inning solo homer, over the leaping reach of Pirates center-fielder Michael A. Taylor into the Phillies’ bullpen, accounted for the first run of the game.

Then, in the seventh, Brandon Marsh needed a replay review to confirm what had initially been ruled an RBI double off the left-field fence actually cleared it for a two-run homer.

Bryson Stott then followed with a two-run bomb into the right-field seats to make it 5-0 after two outfielders tried to catch Nick Castellanos’ fly ball and neither could.

"It was huge," Marsh said of the sudden surge of power. "They had a really good arm on the other side [Pirates starter Jared Jones]. It was big for us to step up tonight and get that big lead for Ranger [Suarez]."

None of that sudden punch should overshadow pitching keyed by Suarez’s strong six-inning start in which he allowed two hits and struck out eight. Yunior Marte pitched a shutout seventh while striking out three and Nick Nelson threw a scoreless eighth before Pittsburgh scored its only run off Nelson with two outs in the ninth.

"I thought he was outstanding," Thomson said of Suarez, now 2-0 with a 2.65 ERA. "He got ahead. Got eight 0-2 counts on hitters. Driving the fastball in on the right-handers. All his stuff was working."

Phillies hitters have been urged to chase pitches less, which has led to concern that perhaps their aggressiveness at the plate has been undermined and their comfort compromised. Selectivity had not equated to connectivity.

There had been a bit of a power failure, though the Phillies were still good enough to take two of three at both Washington and St. Louis in the past week. But only two NL teams had fewer homers than the Phillies’ 11 before Thursday.

"That's part of our game," Thomson said after the win of the three homers. "We really haven't had it much this year so hopefully that continues. It's gonna come and go just like everything else but it was good to see some guys hit the ball out of the ballpark."

The Phillies also had a league-low eight doubles entering the game and their .342 slugging percentage ranked 13th among the 15 NL teams.

"We're not really worried too much about that," said Marsh, now batting a team-best .333. "We're just trying to win some ballgames. Right now we're above .500 [7-6] and we'd like to keep it that way. The slug will come, with the lineup we have. It's just a matter of time."

Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com and our DE Game Day newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Alec Bohm, Brandon Marsh, Bryson Stott swat homers as Phillies win