CHICAGO -- It was a miserable night for baseball at venerable Wrigley Field on Monday, but the Phillies didn't mind it one bit.

Despite on-and-off rain, a biting, cold wind and temperatures in the low 40s, the Phillies managed to pull off a 10-2 win over the Chicago Cubs (see Instant Replay).

The Phillies out-hit the defending World Series champs, 12-4, and half of their hits were for extra bases, including three homers.

In short, the Phils did not look like the same team that was swept over the weekend in Los Angeles.

And Tommy Joseph didn't look like the same hitter.

The Phillies' first baseman went 0 for 8 on the West Coast to drop to .179 on the season. But when he awakened on Monday, he vowed to start anew as the calendar turned to May.

With heavy rain falling in the first inning, Joseph got a 2-2 fastball from lefty Brett Anderson, the Cubs' starting pitcher, and powered it into the seats in left-center. The three-run home run, which capped an early rally that started with Aaron Altherr stroking a two-run double, gave the Phils and Vince Velasquez a 4-0 lead.

The homer was Joseph's only hit of the night, but he did walk and line-out hard to center field later in the game. He ended the night hitting just .183 (13 for 71), but maybe this was the start of something. And it came just in time as Howie Kendrick, nearing the end of a stint on the disabled list, was dusting off his first baseman's mitt, Rhys Hoskins was lighting up the International League and manager Pete Mackanin was talking about Joseph's playing time.

"It obviously felt good for me to do that," Joseph said of his first-inning home run. "But it's more important for this team to get a win like that against the defending champions. They're a pretty good club top to bottom."

Joseph entered the game with just seven RBIs. His three-run homer was hit so hard and on such a line that it resembled a well-struck 3-iron shot. And it came during a drenching downpour -- no easy feat.

"It's difficult to do it in good conditions so just to be able to do it felt nice," Joseph said. "It's something I haven’t been able to do all year long, so I might as well start on May 1."

Expounding on his early-season slump, Joseph said, "It's definitely not bad luck. There's stuff that I can control. A lot of it was me being in between with my swing. That’s something that can happen in this game. Then you start to think about a few things and it can snowball on you. But today was May 1 and that's kind of how I wanted to look at it -- start over."

Before the game, Mackanin talked about the need for Joseph to start hitting to stay in the lineup.

"If that’s what got it out if him, I hope he heard me," Mackanin said. "I've said it for a few years now. You audition every day that you go out there. No one is given a job. If you want to play, you have to hit."

Altherr is doing that.

An inning after putting the Phillies on the board with his RBI double in the first, he mashed a two-run double in the second inning. He also walked in the game and made a sterling defensive play to help Velasquez get out of trouble in the fourth inning.

Altherr's playing time jumped when Kendrick went on the disabled list two weeks ago. He is hitting .313 (15 for 48) with eight extra-base hits. Kendrick has stepped up his baseball activities -- throwing and hitting off a tee. It's still unclear when he will return, but he's probably not more than two weeks away. Altherr is making a case to stay in the lineup, regardless.

"He's making it difficult," Mackanin said. "I've got to try to keep him in the lineup. He's playing well."

Michael Saunders and Freddy Galvis also homered for the Phillies and Velasquez benefited from all the run support.

It was one of those good-Vinny, bad-Vinny nights. The power-armed right-hander got through the first three innings smoothly on 44 pitches, but needed 37 pitches and that big defensive play from Altherr to get through the fourth. His pitch count rose to 98 and he was gone after five innings. He gave up just one run on an 0-2 homer by Javier Baez and made several big pitches to get out of trouble.

"He got the win and I'm happy about that," Mackanin said of Velasquez. "He pitched well. But he's using too many pitches. We'd like him to go deeper into games. He just uses too many pitches.

"In that fourth inning, for some reason he changed his rhythm and took too much time between pitches. He was thinking too much."

Velasquez's inability to go deep into the game on a night when he got tons of run support was about the only downer in the game for the Phils.

Ten runs against the mighty Cubs after being swept Los Angeles.

Mackanin will take that any time.

"We beat a really good team," he said. "To hold them to two runs is special to us."