The Philadelphia Union have inflicted a heavy defeat on D.C. United for the second time this season as the Eastern Conference leaders ran away with a 6-0 victory at Audi Field.
Julian Carranza scored his second hat-trick of the season while Daniel Gazdag, Mikael Uhre and Cory Burke also found the back of the net for Philadelphia, who beat D.C. 7-0 just six weeks ago.
Carranza is the first Union player to score multiple hat-tricks in the same season while the Red and Black have failed to score in their last 450 minutes, which is five games on the trot.
Philadelphia sit six points clear of second-place Montreal in the East while D.C. are rock-bottom, eight points adrift at the bottom of the standings with the lowest point total in MLS.
Story of the match
D.C. did get the first chance of the contest after just three minutes as Ravel Morrison saw his shot go off the arm of defender Jack Elliott, but after video review, no penalty was given.
Following the restart, Philadelphia did break the other way to earn a corner kick, but they weren't able to get a good look at goal thanks to the Red and Black defense.
Morrison, who was D.C.'s most dangerous player on the night, found some space inside the Union box to fire off a shot, but Andre Blake dove low to his right to deny the former Derby man.
Three minutes later, the hosts were unlucky not to open the scoring. A poor clearance by Jakob Glesnes fell right to Taxi Fountas, but this shot thumped off of the right post and came out.
The visitors responded when Jose Martinez kept possession alive following a blocked shot and fed it out wide to Kai Wagner, who made a run to the back post, but Rafael Romo punched his effort away.
Philadelphia opened the scoring eight minutes from halftime as Carranza sent in a cross from the right and Uhre controlled the ball with his chest and after holding off his marker, beat Romo at the far post.
The lead was doubled in the closing moments of the first half as Uhre was clumsily taken down by Jorge Alfaro and Gazdag stepped up to the spot, making no mistake for his 13th goal of the season.
Two minutes into the second half, the Union added a third. Captain Alejandro Bedoya intercepted the ball and sent it upfield to Gazdag. The Hungarian laid it off to Carranza, who curled home with his left foot.
Burke came on in the 65th minute for Uhre and four minutes later, forced Alfaro into a turnover and getting it to Carranza, who back-heeled to Gazdag and it eventually came back to Burke, who hit the post, but Carranza finished on the rebound to make it 4-0.
A mistake by Romo led to Philadelphia's fifth. The Red and Black 'keeper tried to play out of the back, but he turned it over to Carranza, who rounded Romo and fired into the empty net.
Burke would cap the scoring after a perfectly weighted pass by Jack McGlynn found the Jamaican and he caught Romo out of position with a curler from 16 yards away.
Man of the match: Julian Carranza
Him, Gazdag and Uhre are proving to be the creative forces that Philadelphia have been searching for for a long time and with all three at their very best, the Union are an extremely difficult team to beat now that they have added offensive firepower to their stout defense.