Game Report: May 2005 Archives

Atlanta at Washington. Nationals 3, Cowards 2.

The day began when townsfolk gathered to lay flowers on the lockers of the players who are no longer with us. As the mourners filed by, a teary Bluegrass read their names.

Francis Beltran.
Alex Escobar.
Wil Cordero.
Antonio Osuna.
Joey Eischen.
Sledgehammer.
Vidro for Victory.
Henry Mateo.
John Patterson.
Jeff Hammonds.
John Rauch.

After a moment of silence, Frank stepped up to the makeshift podium (actually two Gatorade coolers with the back of Vidro's gray jersey draped over the front) and awarded purple hearts to Riker, Bluegrass, Guillen the Barbarian, Officer Schneider, Vinny, and Livo. There was a lot of crying; this platoon has suffered a 64-percent casualty rate, and survivor's guilt is rampant in the clubhouse.

"Sledgehammer was so young," Bluegrass wept as he spoke. "It should have been me out there chasing that fly ball to the wall. Maybe I wouldn't have torn my Achilles tendon clean off the bone. And even if I would have, I've played a few good years, but Sledgehammer had his whole career ahead of him."

Vinny, moist-eyed himself, put his arms around his bereaved comrade. "That's no way to talk, Bluegrass," he said. "It was just Sledgehammer's time. We need to honor his sacrifice, not blame ourselves for what we can't control. Sledgehammer would have wanted us to think of him with a smile and to go back out and do our duty."

It was all kind of overwhelming for the platoon's many new faces, replacements thrown piecemeal into a tightly knit, veteran unit. The older players were avoiding close contact with the new guys, knowing it wasn't worth getting attached since many of them would just end up on the DL like the buddies the veterans had already lost.

CJ Nitkowski, Tyrell Godwin, Brendan Harris, and Marlon Byrd stood together, on the far side of the clubhouse, outsiders to the mourning, to the tears and the healing.

"You guys suppose they'll even notice if one of us goes down?" Nitkowski asked.

No one answered.

But sentimental reverie never lasts long, not in the life of an active platoon. There was nothing for it but to go back on patrol, today a search-and-destroy mission against Atlanta's boys in gray. Which they did, if just barely. Kyotomo carried the team, taking point and cutting down Atlanta batter after Atlanta batter. Eventually Kyotomo fell back and Majewski stepped up to carry the regimental colors.

Meanwhile Riker reached base three times. Determined not to wind up just another forgotten replacement, Byrd drove in Riker twice. Back in the dugout, the grizzled veterans started talking to Byrd like he was one of them.

On the way to driving Atlanta off the field, the team's casualty-driven cracks were showing. Few units can stand even 10 percent casualties without losing their combat effectiveness. The wonder wasn't that the Nationals played so roughly, nor that Vinny made a run-costing error. No, the wonder was that the team was able to take the field at all. This is a team that had suffered its own private Shiloh over the last two months, and yet it managed to overcome its losses and its many wounds on this emotionally trying Memorial Day to claw back above .500 and within three games of first place.

Washington at St. Louis. Series Catchup.

Game 1: Cardinals 6, Nationals 3.

Game 2: Cardinals 3, Nationals 1.

Game 3: Nationals 3, Cardinals 2.

BallWonk joined the Nationals in desperately trying to turn things around. Rather than shaving his head, or trading pants with Jamey Carroll, BallWonk tried denial. Maybe if BallWonk didn't say anything about getting swept by Trader Jim's first love and mostest favorite team, maybe then the Nationals would stop being all sucky.

Then the Nationals had to go and nearly get swept trice in a row. Admittedly, the Cardinals are the team to get swept by, if you're going to get swept. If you go to Cincy and get swept, folks will take a subconscious step away from you and say, "Cincinnati? Oh." And then their eyes will start darting around, looking for a quick escape, while they shoo their kids to the other side of the street.

But if the Cardinals sweep you, well, you've been swept by the best team in the NL, a serious juggernaut of the diamond that can field, depending on the pitcher, nine pretty darn good hitters. Those guys sweep you, and folks scrunch up their faces knowingly and say, "Ah, the Cardinals. Good team."

Plus there was the fact that Esteban was pitching game two. You know two things when Esteban pitches: We're going to get a great pitching performance, not just good but great, and we're not gonna score any runs. And when don't score any runs, you know you're just not gonna win that game. So Esteban gave the Cardinals what amounts to an automatic win - not his fault! - in game two, meaning that the Cardinals only had to win two real games to sweep.

But lo and behold, trading pants with Jamey Carroll was what we needed to turn things around. Who'd have thunk? Anyway, BallWonk assumes that's what happened, since suddenly sister Cristian was wearing his socks tall, all Carroll-like, and Jamey Carroll was wearing pants down to his shoes, all Guzmanishly. Not that it helped Guzman any; if there was a way to strike out on two pitches he'd have found it Sunday.

Yet the Nationals managed to win, which they haven't done much lately - just twice on the nine-game road trip - and it's hard to believe that trading pants had nothing to do with it.

Washington at Cincinnati. Red Stockings 4, Nationals 3 (14 innings).

BallWonk was still reeling from the drama of the threatened filibustering and filibuster-breaking in the Senate, and the last-minute deal that averted all the fun, when the senior franchise from Ohio stood for its own filibuster of the Nationals.

Coming into the game, Guillen the Barbarian was as dispirited as BallWonk has ever heard a player - except maybe for Barry Bonds at that press conference where he used his son as a crutch and blamed the media for messing up his knee.

I'm sick, sick, sick, sick. I want to throw up. I don't think I should be hitting third. I should be hitting ninth, behind the pitcher. Seriously. It makes me sick, the way I'm swinging.

Now, BallWonk appreciates the Barbarian's take-responsibility attitude. He carries himself like a consummate sportsman, and you can see how very much he cares about success on every play, every pitch. But Guillen is too harsh. So he had a couple of bad games, and so he missed like five plays in the field that he normally would have gotten. He's hurting is all, and anyway it's not Guillen's job to carry the team.

No, that's Riker's job.

Besides, Guillen went three-for-seven on the night, which is right about what he ought to do.

Unfortunately, once Cincinnati mounted its filibuster, the Nationals whips never got enough runs to move for cloture. Inning after inning of deadlock, with cloture votes narrowly missing and Red Stockins pitchers droning on and on about whatever topics came to mind. At one point Randy Keisler simply read numbers from the Baseball Encyclopedia into the record.

BallWonk knew it was going to be a long night when the stadium pages started setting up cots in the dugout lobbies.

And as has been his wont of late, floor manager Frank made move after move seemingly designed to test his majority's loyalty to him. Which is to say, sometimes he really seems to be managing to lose. "Let's see how good these guys really are," F-Rob says to himself. "Let's see if they can play their way out of the fix I put them in."

As the filibuster dragged on, it began to look like it might not end until Bluegrass had a chance to pitch. Which would have been pretty cool, actually; BallWonk has been hoping to find out whether the Kentucky Sourmasher still has some of his college heat.

But alas, no. Instead, the senior franchise from Ohio was able to marshall the run it needed to force cloture when its only remaining pitcher, the aforementioned Mr. Keisler, laced a hit to score Jason LaRue. That's how it ended: a guy who can't hit drove in a guy who can't run.

Washington at Cincinnati. Red Stockings 5, Nationals 3.

Who is that smiling man in red hugging Nationals General Manager Trader Jim?

Why, Red Stockings outfielder Adam Dunn, natch.

And just who is that holding hands with Trader Jim?

Why, Red Stockings first baseman Sean Casey, dontcha know.

And who were those smiling children in their Red Stockings gear sitting with Trader Jim during the game?

Why, his own children, of course.

Washington hasn't seen this kind of enemy fraternization and turncoatism since the muckrakers exposed Calvin Coolidge's Canadian citizenship. And it comes on top of a series of pro-Cincinnati moves. There's the signing of Guillen the Barbarian, whom Trader Jim befriended in Cincy. There's the hiring of special advisor and known Red Stocking Jose Cardenal. There's the relentless pursuit of Red Stockings outfielder Wily Mo Pena. There are the red caps when the Nationals play in DC. There's the signing of Cristian Guzman, who plays like he belongs in Cincinnati.

And now this: fraternizing with the Red Stockings while they're playing, and beating, our Nationals on the field.

Is that Trader Jim, or is it Traitor Jim?

Of course, conspiracy theories like wouldn't be spreading if the Nationals weren't sucking quite so badly most nights. We had a good outing Sunday in Toronto, but aside from that it's been like a week now since we played a really solid, winning game. A week ago, BallWonk was thinking, "Hmmm, Wild Card?" But now BallWonk is watching .500 rush up at us and he's trying his hardest not to think, because between the injuries and the not scoring any runs and now Guillen the Barbarian not making the plays in right, thinking just leads to total, shrieking panic.

And it's when people are panicky that conspiracy theories start. Like, What was Nixon doing in Dallas the day Kennedy was shot? Or, Isn't Trader Jim just a little too close to that team in Cincinnati we're supposed to be playing against?

It's really not as bad as all that. Riker, who's almost got his beard back, hit a pretty homer in the sixth. Brendan Harris pulled a Blanco with a two-run shot of his own to put us back in contention in the seventh. Needing only two runs to tie, against a tiring starter who stayed in too long and facing a team that just fired its closer, well, that's not such a bad position to be in. You gotta figure the odds are good that you get those two runs and tie, and if the Nationals do that our bullpen ought to tip the balance in our favor.

But not last night. In the eighth, Carroll, the Barbarian, Riker, and Vinny couldn't come up with the runs we needed, and Blanco couldn't catch lightning two nights in a row. That brought the hind end of the order up in the ninth. Do we look too hard for Trader Jim's pro-Cincy bias when we note that the lineup brought Guzman up to bat before Officer Schneider? Or that our game-on-the-line batters that inning were the Guzmanic Carlos Baerga, batting for Guzman, Officer Schneider, and the backup catcher?

Well. Maybe Trader Jim just hasn't been home in a while, and maybe he didn't seek out the love and affection of the Cincy players but rather they embraced him in a spontaneous show of fraternal love. Or maybe he's our very own Ohioan Candidate, undermining us from within. One thing is for sure: Nothing shuts down the scapegoating conspiracy mill like victory.

Washington at Toronto. USA 9, Canada 2.

The Nationals are going to need their own Memorial Day soon.

Vidro, Sledge, Eischen, and now Bluegrass and Vinny. Heck, even our backups are going down - Jeff Hammonds was airlifted to Walter Reed yesterday too.

So it was a wonder to behold that, despite of all our hurting, the Nationals pounded out a convincing win for America Sunday. By the fifth inning, when the Nationals finally scored their first runs in like a week, BallWonk was left to ask, who are these people? It was like a heartwarming Disney movie about what would have happened had all those big-dream, no-talent scabs been allowed to play out the 1995 season.

Heartwarming, because our lineup full of backups and backup-backups outplayed a real-live big-league ballclub and won an important moral victory for the whole United States in this time of war. "Ah," you might say, "It was only Canada." But Canada, you will remember, beat us Yanks both of the two times we've gone to war. Just like how the Jays had beaten the Nationals both of the first two times we played.

So. We avoided the Ontario sweep, and although we're hurting pretty bad, it's not like any of our players are dead or anything. They're all coming back, some of them maybe even while we're in Cincinnati this week. And hey, with Vidro, Wilkerson, Sledge, and Castilla out, it can hardly get any worse than Sunday.

Well, just so long as Johnson and Guillen stay off the DL. Take care of yourselves, guys, you're all we've got.

Washington at Toronto. Canada 7, USA 0.

Now, it looks worse than it is. Sure, seven runs sounds like a lot, but these are Canadian runs. That's only five runs in the US. Then you factor in that it's the American League, which suffers from run inflation, and you can really only blame us for four runs. Four runs isn't so bad.

The problem is that we've scored a grand total of seven runs over the last five games. Soccer teams score more often than that. The average ballgame is a 5-4 affair, so if you're not averaging more than four runs a game, you're not going to win a lot of games. Just ask Esteban Loaiza, who's due up on Monday, how many games you win with good pitching and no hitting.

And even when we win, we strand a lot of batters. In fact, BallWonk waits until the Nationals load the bases to grab a bag of chips and a cold one. When was the last time we loaded the bases and didn't strand three runners? Spring training? That time Bluegrass and Officer Schneider got together to play MVP Baseball on the Playstation last winter?

So please, Nationals, don't load the bases tomorrow. Just score some runs, and avoid the Canadian sweep.

Washington at Toronto. Canada 6, USA 1.

We'd been waiting for this return to familiar territory for a long time now, and man ... What a disappointment!

The pacing was all wrong, the middle third was dull, the good guys had bad chemistry, and the bad guys won. On the other hand, Obi-Wan's angry denunciation of Anakin on Mustafar was pretty cool, maybe the second-best scene in the whole six-movie Star Wars saga.

You thought maybe BallWonk was talking about Friday night's Nationals game? Nope. A guy's gotta have priorities. But whether you spent the night in front of a big screen at Hoffman Center or the little screen in your living room, the show was pretty much the same. Lots of action for the bad guys, long, awkward outings for the good guys, and absolutely no explanation for how Leia could tell Luke that she remembers their mother in Return of the Jedi.

Darth Vernon was pretty impressive, but unlike the movie, the Nationals game was not smoothed by the presence of Ewan McGregor, who has proven that he can save any script through sheer force of screen-acting will. At least Revenge of the Sith had that scene with Obi-Wan telling off Anakin at the end. That made up for a lot of the dreck we'd had to sit through up to that point. A Nationals fan had to expect a returning Guillen the Barbarian to bring some of that Kenobian grace to the game, but no such luck.

All the Nationals gave us was a lesson in the dark side of the fourth and a big fat loss for America.

Milwaukee at Washington. Nationals 3, Brewers 2.

The great thing is that the Nationals are beating good (not great, but good) teams despite having only three-and-a-half real starters and missing one quality outfielder and the team's most perennial all-star. And that's not even mentioning the bullpen, which is either a quarter empty or three-quarters full, depending on how you see that sort of thing.

Now, you take most teams, and you take away a good-hitting starting outfielder, you make two-fifths of their rotation suck, you put their best all-around player on the DL, and then you deplete the bullpen, and you're pretty much left with the Royals. Or the Devil Rays. But the Nationals have taken those hits and paced Florida and Atlanta. Not just paced; we're gaining on them. Tied for second place after this afternoon's game.

Even without the Sledgehammer and Vidro for Victory we have a lineup strong enough that the Brewers, an honest-to-gosh good (not great, but good) team walked our number-eight batter. Intentionally. With runners on. When everyone knew a pinch hitter was going to bat next for the pitcher. This is a man, you might recall, whose nickname is "6-3," and that's not his height. In his whole career he's only been intentionally walked seven times. Our worst regular batter, who's an even .100 with runners in scoring position, and the Brewers didn't want to pitch to him.

Which is to say, Daaaaamn, we've got a pretty good team here. Five games above .500 and half a game back of first place in the toughest division in baseball. We've won most of our series. We've shown we can explode for five, six, seven runs, at any time, which is pretty much the only reason a guy like Guzman got walked today - you just never know with the Nationals when we're going to jump all over you for more runs in an inning than most teams score in a series - and yet we still manage to eke out more than our fair share of one-run wins in low-scoring duels.

Of course the Brewers meant well. But here's a message to the rest of the National League: If things have progressed to the point that you consider walking Cristian Guzman, you've already lost that game to the Nationals. It's like when the bad guys have to fall back on the last-ditch plan of "engage Batman in a fistfight and hope for the best." Once things have reached that point, your plot to ransom Gotham's water supply or whatever is already done, and you might as well surrender and avoid the beating, because either way you're gonna be back in Arkham Asylum on page 22.

Thus with the Nationals and the question of intentionally walking Guzman.

Speaking of whom, what is Frank Robinson going to do when Vidro comes back? We've got five infielders: Their awesomenesses Vinny, Vidro, and Riker; the barely adequate Guzman, and the stunningly well-rounded Jamey Carroll. The last few days, Carroll has been making plays from third to first. A ball is flied to shallow right, and you're thinking, "Riker will get this for the out," but then here comes Carroll zipping in and plop there's the ball in Jamey's glove. Someone get Riker a chair. And last week Carroll showed he could do a pretty mean Ozzie Smith impression at short, too, sort of like Guzman but faster and with a good bat.

But Frank can't sit Vidro once he's back. And we can't really afford to keep paying Guzman's Garciaparian salary just to have him ride the bench (and let's be honest, it's not like Guzzie is anyone's idea of a good pinch-hitter). Vinny is playing like it's Colorado, and Riker is one of the best hitters in the league and he's quietly building a case for a Gold Glove.

Back in t-ball, BallWonk's very first team, the Wawa Mets, had a fifth infielder who played directly behind second base. It was really a very, very shallow extra centerfielder, but the Wayne, PA t-ball league called it the "stopshort." Perhaps it's time to petition Emperor Selig and his dark minions to let us use Carroll as a stopshort when Vidro comes back.

Milwaukee at Washington. Nationals 1, Brewers 0.

Guys, what did I do to you? Did you ask me to feed your fish the last time you left town and I forgot and you came home to a tank full of floating carp? Did you really hate the red shirts I made you wear against the Phillies that much? Are my Gypsy Kings and Eagles CDs really so bad? Or did you maybe just have a bad time in Tijuana that time on spring break in high school? Does my bald spot make you feel your own mortality?

What is it? Why won't you score any runs when I pitch?

Whatever it is, I'm really, really sorry. And not just sorry because you won't score runs for me. No, I'm deeply, sincerely sorry for whatever I did. Because I can see how much whatever it is has hurt your feelings. You're my teammates, and it makes me very sad to think that I hurt your feelings.

And, you know, no offense, Livo, but I've been your best pitcher this season. You know it, I know it. But because you give all your run support to Livo, he's got six wins and I've got one. This isn't about wins for me; you're only hurting yourselves when you refuse to score when I pitch.

Don't think that I didn't notice that you went eight whole innings without scoring tonight - without even coming close to scoring - but the instant I was out of the game you loaded the bases and then scored. If it hadn't been the ninth inning of a tie game, if you weren't constitutionally limited to a single, game-winning run, you would have scored five, six runs that inning. Don't even try to deny it. You know you would have.

So I can see that you're hurt. You're angry at me. That's OK. I want to make it better. I want to apologize to you and beg you to forgive me. Yes, beg. I'll do whatever it takes to put this episode behind us and get you to start scoring when I pitch. You just have to tell me what I did wrong and I promise it will never happen again.

Just, for the love of pete, please start scoring some runs when I pitch. One or two even. That's all I'm asking.

Milwaukee at Washington. Brewers 8, Nationals 2.

Obermueller presents his list

Wes Obermueller strode to the mound Tuesday and shocked the crowd by announcing, "I have here in my hand a list of 27 Nationals who appear to be red sympathizers. I mean, just look at their hats and their socks - red, red, red. I intend to blacklist them all."

The Nationals were stunned. No one had made such an accusation before! And who was this little jumped-up pissant from Wisconsin anyway? The bench turned to ex-Brewer Gary Bennett.

"Oh, he's always going on about this or that. Last year he had this theory that the Cardinals were part of a papal conspiracy with the freemasons. The year before, it was the Padres and something about Spanish in the schools. Don't worry about him, he's just a conspiracy nut."

But the pitcher has the power of the subpoena no matter how crazy his colleagues think he is. First, he summoned Bluegrass to testify.

"Mr. Wilkerson, are you or are you not wearing a red cap?"

"I am, sir, but you have to understand - "

"I'm not interested in your excuses. Sit down; you've been blacklisted."

Next came Jamey Carroll, who got the same treatment - uncomfortable questions and then blacklisting. And then Nick Johnson too, for a one-two-three inning.

"I wish I'd brought my lawyer," Nick told the guys at the dugout. "I think this guy is for real."

Meanwhile, the Brewers batters were building a six-run outburst that knocked Claudio Vargas out of the game after only four outs. The good news for the Nationals is that Kyotomo pitched most of six solid, no-run innings. Which is good, since a six-run deficit is the kind of thing the Nationals have been known to come back from. And six quality, scoreless innings is the kind of thing we want to see from potential starters like Kyotomo.

But then the heart of the Nationals order came up in the second to face Tailgunner Wes's accusations. Cuz Castilla? Blacklisted. Ryan Church? Blacklisted. Marlon Byrd? Blacklisted.

That made it six in a row.

"I don't know what's going on, guys," Bennett apologized. "His crackpot accusations have never had this much traction before. I don't know why people are taking him seriously this time."

And so it went. In the third, Officer Schneider, Guzie, and Kyotomo were blacklisted. In the fourth, Bluegrass tried to invoke the Fifth Amendment, but that just got him blacklisted again. Jamey Carroll tried to argue that it was none of the Brewers' business what color socks a free citizen chose to wear. Blacklisted again! Nick Johnson refused to answer any questions at all, and just got blacklisted again.

And so it went through the order a second time. Eighteen batters up, eighteen down. After his second blacklisting, Cuz walked away from the whole proceeding in disgust, and Blanco came in to play third.

"Guys, we have a real problem here," Bluegrass said. "We know all this talk about us being a bunch of reds is bull, but Obermueller is cleaning our clocks. What can we do?"

Frank Robinson stirred from his slumber. "Boys, I remember another time when some no-good nobody from Wisconsin came to Washington and scared everybody with his red baiting. I was serving with the 72nd up north of Seoul that winter, but back home this Wisconsin fearmonger had the whole country afraid of the reds, but most of all afraid of him."

"So what did folks do?" Carroll asked.

"Mostly, folks did what you've all done - they got themselves blacklisted. But then one young man, he just let this senator insult him and insult him until everyone saw the senator for the mean old bully that he was."

"Hmmmm," said Bluegrass.

"Hmmmm," said Carroll.

"Hmmmm," said Riker.

And so when he came up to bat in the seventh, his third time up, with Obermueller six innings into a red scare of a perfect game, Bluegrass let Obermueller do his worst. Bluegrass struck out swinging, but Obermueller had stepped into the trap. "Why, I'll bet your mother is a red, too, Mr. Wilkerson. Do you deny it? And what about your wife? Are you bringing up your little baby wearing red?"

Even his teammates were stunned by Obermueller's outburst. This had gone far enough!

After swinging at his third strike, Bluegrass stood in the batter's box and shouted to the pitcher, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Behind home plate, Damian Miller whispered to Brad, "I am so sorry that I went along with this. I guess I just got swept up. I mean, he said he had a list."

But the damage was done, and Obermueller's spell broken. Jamey Carroll shattered the perfect game with a single to right. Then Nick Johnson took himself off the blacklist with a single to center. Blanco and Church hit grounders for outs to end the inning without scoring, but that wasn't the point. Just getting a couple of hits stopped Tailgunner Wes in his tracks.

Meanwhile, Latchkey relieved Kyotomo. And while Kyotomo pitched like somebody who ought to be back in the rotation, Latchkey pitched like someone who ought to be back in Savannah. He put runners in scoring position both innings he pitched and allowed two of them to score. The three strikeouts were nice to see, and the Brewers had to play small ball to score the runs, but still. Those runs put the game pretty much out of reach, even for our Comeback Kids.

The one-two punch of Bluegrass and Riker delivered two runs for pride in the bottom of the ninth to make it 8-2.

But even though Obermueller left the game in disgrace, the damage he had done lingered. Nineteen consecutive batters retired. A perfect game taken into the seventh. And a team known for its offensive explosions and come-from-behind victories shut out for eight innings.

Milwaukee at Washington. Nationals 5, Brewers 2.

Time was, Milwaukee had the whole brewing thing down. You wanted beer, you had to go to Milwaukee. Heck, even today, downtown Milwaukee smells like beer. Do they still brew anything in Milwaukee anymore, or does the smell just linger for a few decades? Who knows? And who cares? Because these days, we brew great beer right here in Washington, DC. Better beer than Old Milwaukee or Pabst, that's for sure.

Heck, right there at RFK you can get DC-brewed beer that's better than anything anyone ever brewed in Milwaukee.

And the Brewers certainly weren't brewing up anything special Monday night. Or maybe they were - Russ Branyan's behavior at third base would make some sense if he'd been tipping back bottles of the brew between innings. It was kind of sad, really. Watching the game, you just wanted to pull him aside like some underachieving little leaguer and tell him not to be afraid of the ball.

It can't hurt you, Russ. Just put your body in front of the ball and try to stop it. Stop holding your glove out and closing your eyes! You're a big boy now. Get in front of the ball and don't be afraid to let it hit you.

And welcome to Washington, Mr. Byrd. What't that? You want us to pass a message on to Philadelphia? You can too hit? Great. We'll let them know. Come again? Oh, you want to give us some RBIs to prove that you mean business? And you want us to say what to the Phillies? Oh, you mean the sign you're making with your fingers - oh, Marlon! You're such a kidder! Uh, you're not kidding? You really want to tell the Phillies to do that with their mothers? Um, have you been talking with Guillen? OK, OK, we'll pass it along.

Oh, and Ms. BallWonk wants to send her own special welcome to Mr. Byrd, who is a positive addition to the club. Note to MASN: More closeups of Marlon, please.

All in all, a good first game for Byrd and a good way to start a four-pack of games against the Brew Crew.

Chicago at Washington. Nationals 4, Cubbies 3.

Finally. Armed Forces Day seemed to do the trick: a Cubs game at RFK in which turncoat Chicagoans did not outcheer loyal Nationals fans. Semper Fidelis and all that.

BallWonk wore his Nationals cap to the barber shop today. A customer in the chair closest the door asked, "Are you going to tonight's game?" Well, not as such; BallWonk's tickets are in Section 626 tonight. Turns out this fellow has been to seven games so far, a nice sum, and he's going tonight. "I'll tell you what, though, I got pretty sick of those Chicago fans this weekend."

Right on, brother. You know, there were a lot of Philly fans at RFK when the Quakers came to town in April, but they let their maroon ballcaps and powder-blue number 20 jerseys do the talking for them. "You're right," the man in the chair with the haircut poncho said. "The Phillies fans were good sports. They came to see the game and have fun. It got pretty tense with the Cubs fans, though; they were trying to get in your face and make something of it."

And then trusty cutter Will's chair opened up, and it was BallWonk's turn to go under the number-two razor. Will's dad was at the games this weekend, too, a lifelong Cubs fan in his blue Cubby bear cap. "But he found that he just couldn't bring himself to root against the home team, no matter how much he loves the Cubs," Will said.

"He's a good man," BallWonk replied.

Will nodded his agreement. "That's my pop."

Which just goes to show that not all Cubs fans are, well, the kind of folks the weekend series has left so many of us thinking Cubs fans must be. BallWonk's barber's dad and insightful reader TMK, at least, are good sports and not at all the White Sox-style thugs so abundantly in attendance at RFK these last few days.

Still, good riddance to the Cubs, who won't be back 'til 2006, and who might need that long to lick their wounds from the drubbing they took in Washington. At least since the days of Adlai Stevenson, folks from Illinois just don't succeed in Washington. Oh, sure, the speaker of the house, Representative What's-His-Name, hails from the Chicago suburbs. But we all know he's a figurehead, not really the guy running the House, and anyway if he was so important, how come nobody knows his name? Even in Illinois? Point is, Chicago ain't ready for Washington, no matter how hard Cubs fans try to turn RFK into Wrigley East.

Wisconsin, though, has a better record here in Washington. So be wary, Nationals, and don't let the Brewers catch us napping.

Meantime, anybody want an authentic Cubs home cap, clean and in good condition, low profile in size 7-1/2? BallWonk doesn't think he'll be wanting to wear his Cubbies cap anymore.

Chicago at Washington. Nationals 4, Cubbies 3.

And another thing. It's fine to decry the anti-Washington treason of all those Cubs fans at RFK. (What are they all doing here in Washington anyway? Didn't we send Dan Rostenkowski and his Chicago minions packing years ago?) But real Nationals fans need to do better than just booing when 15,000 people start chanting "Let's Go Cubbies" right here in DC.

Aside from being unsportsmanlike - if Philadelphia fans regularly do a thing, you know it's the wrong thing to do - the boo is completely lame. It doesn't stop the Cubs chants, and it sends America the wrong message. The Cubs fans may be counter-revolutionary traitors in need of a few weeks peeling communal turnips in a reeducation camp, but at least they're positive and upbeat. As fans go, at RFK Chicago is Reagan, Washington is Mondale; Cubs fans are Clinton, Nats fans are Gingrich. Cheering beats booing every time in America.

Nor will "Let's Go Nats" suffice when trying to suppress the "Let's Go Cubbies" chant.

This problem calls for reader comments with suggestions. BallWonk will start things off by throwing out the following ideas:

• Ditka Sucks! - Sure, it's the Cubbies who suck, but most Cubs fans are aware of the fact and won't bother to argue with you if that's what you shout. But Ditka? No self-respecting Chicagoan can continue chanting "Let's Go Cubbies" if doing so means letting pass a slander against St. Mike.

• Deeee Seee! - Like a foghorn. High on the D, low on C. Has the same emotional satisfaction of a classic boo, but with a positive, pro-Nationals message. Plus it ought to be effective in drowning out enemy cheers. Have you ever heard a choir outsing a foghorn?

• Nah-Shuh-Nulls! - The beauty of drawling out the team name is that it will disrupt the 4/4 meter of the "Let's Go Cubbies" chant with an easier-to-chant 3/3 crowd-pleaser. Make it Nah-Shuh-Nulls-clap-clap and it becomes 5/4 time, which any Brubeck fan can confirm beats the pants off 4/4 any day.

Finally, BallWonk would suggest patriotic singing - we are after all the Nationals - but BallWonk is not sure that Americans can pull off this hallmark of European soccer fandom. Still, a chorus or two of the Battle Hymn of the Republic or the Battle Cry of Freedom ought to do the trick. The great thing is that both are marching songs, composed for large crowds to chant in unison, and both can be shouted at the top of your lungs. No dainty Star Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful, these.

Ideas?

Chicago at Washington. Cubbies 6, Nationals 3.

Well, at least the fans went home happy.

Now, BallWonk had to rely on what he heard on TV - and why, exactly, do the announcers pronounce it "mah-sin" and not "may-son"? - but what he heard on TV was a crowd that said "Let's Go Cubbies!" with a lot more gusto than it ever said "Let's go Nats!"

Which just goes to prove that expatriate Washingtonians showing up at RFK to root for their old team is cute until 15,000 of them get together, outnumber loyal Nationals fans, and so unnerve our beloved home team that they bumble away the game and lose. Then it's not so charming that people are having "Should I root for the Nationals or my old team" discussions on blog comment pages.

And really, how cute has treason ever been? Not very. We don't think it charming of Bennedict Arnold that, even though he mostly cheered for America, he showed up to the big game in a bright red England hat. Oh, how fun! The lifelong British subject just can't bring himself to root for his new team when they visit for an important game.

Puh-leeze.

It's time to choose, Washington baseball fans: Either you are with us, or your are against us.

BallWonk sympathizes. A one-time resident of Wrigleyville himself, BallWonk has a Cubs hat in his closet. And if the Nationals ever play the Twins in the World Series, well, BallWonk won't be rooting against Minnesota.

But the Cubbies cap will stay in that closet, and BallWonk certainly will not show up to RFK and cheer for the Twins. Not ever.

It is all right for longtime fans of other teams - and as team-less Washingtonians, aren't we all fans of other teams - to hold those teams dear in our hearts still and to wish them well. But it is not all right to show up at RFK by the thousands to actively cheer for these other teams and against our own home team. That's just wrong, or anyway it's wrong to do that and then call yourself a Nationals fan the rest of the year. Either you is or you ain't, and if you show up at RFK to root for the Cubbies like it's Wrigley Field then you ain't a Nationals fan, not now, not ever. And when the real Washington fans behind you start throwing their peanuts or their wads of cotton candy at you for trying to get the whole section to join you in chanting "Let's Go Cubbies" at a Nationals game, well, you have it coming.

Not that BallWonk endorses fan vigilantism or peanut-slash-cotton-candy posse justice. Oh no. But if you play with fire it's your own darn fault if you get burned, Cubs fans.

Anyway, just about when the Star Trek franchise was throwing away Commander Trip, egged on by Counselor Troi - yes, there was channel-flipping on Friday night - the Washington franchise was throwing away the game, egged on by thousands of native-Washington Cubs fans. And yes, native-Washington Cubs fans pretending they're at Wrigley are every bit as lame as Counselor Troi. It wasn't just that we blew the game with errors. It's that we blew the game on a throwing error by the pitcher and a catching error by the catcher.

These are the two guys on a team who don't have to do anything but their one job. You don't have to hit, much, to be a big-league pitcher or a catcher. Pitchers don't even have to be great at catching the ball, and catchers don't have to have great throwing prowess to succeed in the big leagues. But a pitcher's gotta throw and a catcher's gotta catch. C'mon, guys! You can do better than that. We Washington fans are a forgiving lot; we can live with pitchers who are afraid to throw strikes and batters who melt with runners in scoring position, but we do expect our defense not to embarrass us.

I mean, right now, today, there are folks in Chicago - in Chicago, a city whose teams are so laughable that even Washington has more recently won the World Series - laughing at us for our defense. Heck, there were probably thousands of non-Nationals fans right there at RFK laughing it up at our expense. And when you do so bad that even Chicago's sorry-ass fans laugh at you, well, you done some real bad.

Washington at Arizona. Snakes 3, Nationals 2.

A night after out-hitting Arizona 10-3 but losing 3-2, the Nationals had an opportunity to pick up a game on Atlanta in the standings after the Tomahawks finally lost one in Colorado.

The good news: Claudio Vargas pitched just as effectively as Tony Armas the night before. Better, even. That's a lot of good pitching we've got. Any time you can hold the other team to four or fewer runs in a game, you ought to win.

Of course, ought and can are two different things. And if good pitching is something we're flush with, the one thing we're lacking is run support. In fact, there seems to be an inverse relationship between pitching and hitting. The smoother the starter sails through opposing hitting, the less the Nationals score. The more the starter struggles and has to pitch his way out of trouble, the more the Nationals score.

Just look at Livo and Esteban. Livo is 5-2 in eight starts with a 4.02 ERA. Esteban's superior 3.69 ERA is matched by fewer hits and walks per inning than Livo, but in his seven starts Loaiza is 1-2. Both good pitchers giving us quality, gutsy performances on the mound. It's just that Esteban is pitching a little bit better and being punished for it by our bats.

So the bad news is that Claudio Vargas pitched effectively for six innings, thus ensuring that the Nationals would give him no real run support and we'd lose the game. By the wound-salting score of 3-2.

At least we have a day off today to get back home. Cubs and Brewers Friday and into next week. The Cubs are playing a lot of one-run games this year, losing more than they win. The Brewers, on the other hand, are wiping up in one-run games and proving this year that the only thing holding them back has been the dark influence of Emperor Selig and his daughter. But the point is that if we can't find a way to win games where the other team only scores three times, this could be a particularly rough homestand.

Washington at Arizona. Snakes 3, Nationals 2.

Tony Armas, uncertain about his arm and making his first big-league start of the year, turned to his teammates in the dugout before the Nationals batted in the first.

"Just make sure you get some hits, guys."

Which the Nationals proceeded to get. Lots of hits. Loaded the bases three times.

When he came back to the dugout after being pulled in the sixth, he realized his mistake. He had implored his teammates to get some hits just in case he didn't have his good pitches. They had done what he asked. But he didn't tell them to get some runs, and runs were what Washington didn't have. Well, two of them, but nobody ever won a ballgame with two runs. Well, OK, the Nationals never won a ballgame with two runs.

It was so bad that the Nationals loaded the bases three times and scored none of those nine runners. It was another 10-hit game for the Nationals, but the lack of clutch hitting dropped the team's batting average with runners in scoring position into negative numbers. That's right; the Nationals are batting -.148 with runners in scoring position. Even when we win, isn't that the signature event that lets you know you're watching the Nationals - the team loads the bases and then fails to score?

The last couple of days, F-Rob has talked about the Nationals getting timely hitting. Yet they were still stranding lots of runners. It's not that we were hitting well with runners on, it's just that we weren't sucking quite as much as normal.

If only Armas had asked for runs instead of hits, maybe the Nationals would have focused more on getting home than getting on base, and maybe they wouldn't have lost to a mediocre team that only scored three runs.

Washington at Arizona. Nationals 4, Snakes 3.

BalWonk turns today's game report over to manager and poet Frank Robinson, who summarized our fourth straight whupping of Arizona with this beautiful haiku:

That's how winning teams
Continue to win
Everybody contributes.

Well, everyone except Guzman, who contributed squat at the plate, looked weak in the field, and then pulled his hamstring. That led F-Rob to conduct an experiment he was previously unwilling to try. It turns out Jamey Carroll can play shortstop. Hmmmmm. A competent defensive shortstop who's batting .405 with a .450 on-base percentage. Whatever will we do with such a player?

While BallWonk doesn't actually want Guzman to be hurt - BallWonk wants Guzman to be good - maybe Guzman could, you know, take his time coming back from his hamstring pull. There's no rush, Cristian. You focus on getting yourself back to 100 percent.

Washington at San Francisco. Umpires 2, Giants 2, Nationals 3 in 13.

That was some serious horseshit umpiring out there. As if the random strike zone wasn't enough - at least the asscrap balls and strikes went both ways and evened out over the course of the game - the umpires had to go and spot San Francisco two runs on monumentally bad calls. These weren't even close plays that the umps called wrong. These were simple, open-and-shut calls that would have pissed us off even if they had helped the Nationals.

You don't see one call that bad with such a game-affecting result once a month in the big leagues. Twice in one game? Something more than mere incompetence has to be at work here.

In the fifth, Omar Vizquel was out at first. By a full step. Riker didn't come anywhere near pulling his foot off the bag to make the catch. And of course that was fan interference on Edgardo Alfonzo's hit in the eighth that should have limited the runner to third. He was hardly even halfway between second and third when the fan interference happened. He gets third. The awful thing was that the umps seemed to make the right call before reversing themselves to make the wrong call.

Aaaaaargh!

The thing is, we could have beaten either the umpires or the Giants. But with the umps and the Giants conspiring together - and yes, we can look at the criminal effect achieved and call this a conspiracy - there was just nothing we could do.

Without Angel Hernandez blowing the easy call at first in the fifth and Charlie Reliford blowing the easy call on interference in the eighth, the Nationals would have won this game 3-1. And the horseshit umpiring didn't just cost us the game - it cost both teams four extra innings of relief pitching in an already bullpen-straining series. Nationals fans need to keep an eye out for Hernandez and Reliford at RFK. And if they dare show their corrupt, game-blowing faces in Washington, Nationals fans need to give 'em hell. Unleash a can of fresh politics of personal destruction on these two crooks and drive 'em out of town like James Traficant.

Washington at San Francisco. Weekend Update.

Nationals 9, Giants 3

Nationals 11, Giants 8

What is going on with the Nationals? Riker! Where's your beard? Without it, you don't look like Riker anymore; you look Mario from Nintendo. Nobody wants to look like Mario, Nick. And Cristian! What part of "the cornrows make you look like the samurai assassin Ghost Dog" don't you understand? Put 'em back. And Vinny, someone's got to say it: your eyes are too gentle and happy for a goatee to make you look fierce. It ain't gonna happen. You might as well shave now. In fact, take Riker's razor. And don't give it back.

Then again, no matter how bad the hair gets, the Nationals always seem to look good on the field. Especially out west. Can someone ask Emperor Selig to realign us to the NL West this year? We would so be going to the playoffs. Well, we still might, but playing lots of extra games against the West would help. I mean, these are supposed to be good teams out there. And we're beating the crap out of them, not like our games against our NL East rivals where we have to scratch and scrape for a win.

After 30 games, we're sitting in third place at 17-13, a game and a half back of Atlanta and half a game behind the Fish. But we're only 10-12 against the East, 7-1 against the West.

Not bad for a last-place team nobody wanted last year.

What's more, we're now 10-7 on the road. Which is to say, we're definitely a big-government Washington team. We will come to your states and strike down your local teams in favor of Nationals supremacy. Don't tread on you? Oh, we'll tread wherever we darn well please. The Supreme Court's narrowing application of the commerce clause will not protect you from Washington anymore, folks.

And have you noticed that people don't even try to steal on us anymore? With Officer Schneider running the Department of Homeplate Security, our opponents are eight for fifteen on stolen bases. That's only fifteen total attempted steals. At this point in the season, most teams in the NL have that many successful steals. The pitching is strong, if not consistent, and while the hitting seems particularly weak with runners on, we can lay a rally down anywhere, anytime, against anyone. Well, against anyone except Dontrelle Willis.

Now, it's nice to go to California and win a lot of games. But the West-Coast climate has wreaked havoc on the team's hair. Riker: Grow the beard back. Guzzie: Replant those cornrows. And Vinny: Nix the goatee.

Washington at Los Angeles. Nationals 5, Dodgers 2

Just what, exactly, is Los Angeles dodging? The draft? Jury duty? The repo man? It's certainly not trolleys; I mean, have you ever been to LA?

Whatever they're dodging, the Dodgers ought to be dodging the Nationals. We were one competent baserunner away from a three-game sweep, which would have been the second such shunning we've handed to a team leading the NL West. But instead of a competent baserunner, we had Guzman, so we'll just have to settle for taking two of three. Against, let us remind ourselves, the first-place team in our league's left-most division.

And we owned this series pretty handily, actually. Latchkey's total collapse Tuesday night didn't cost us the game. Instead, our depleted, war-weary bullpen finished up nicely. Rather, it was our offense that failed to capitalize on what should have been a winning, four-run outing from the staff. Particularly costly was Guzzy's rally-crushing baserunning error. Grrr! But, as the Dodgers can attest, if all you score is two runs, you probably aren't going to win that game.

And it wasn't like F-Rob was actually trying really hard to win Wednesday. He threw up yet another of his Bizarro-World lineups that make your brain hurt to think about. Sure, Bluegrass needs some rest every now and then, and with Slegehammer out that means Inning-Endy has to play. But bat leadoff? In front of Guzman? If Bluegrass is out, then Riker bats leadoff. Period. And even if your entire lineup is composed of the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, and a one-armed pitcher, Guzman never, ever bats lower than eighth. At least not until he's raised his batting average above .260 and learned to take a few walks and to watch the base coaches on the off chance that he does reach base. Then we can talk about batting Guzzie sixth.

And you know what? Just because Inning-Endy went two-for-four doesn't prove F-Rob right to bat him leadoff. This is a guy, a minor-league guy don't forget, who spent the winter trying to learn to bunt to become a leadoff batter. Are the rest of our guys so bad at reaching base that the best we can do for a leadoff batter is find a guy who can sacrifice the pitcher to second? No, the rest of our guys are not that bad. Until they actually are - until we get that madcap team of stooges and Marxes - Inning-Endy ought not bat first.

Anyway, after the stern lecture we have to assume F-Rob delivered on the need to play sound fundamental baseball, like they teach in Little League, the Nationals turned it around Wednesday. Solid hitting, smart running, sharp defense, and Livo.

Livo throws so casually, and his pitches just seem to ease their way to the plate. You watch and you wonder why guys aren't hitting the bejesus out of those batting-practice throws. And then you start paying really close attention and you notice that the pitch you can see isn't actually the pitch Livo threw. His pitches, his really good stuff, that is, are like fighter jets with that radar thing where they can project images of themselves hundreds of miles away from their true position so that when the Soviets scramble their interceptors all they intercept is empty sky.

Pity the poor umpires who have to call balls and strikes on a guy who can literally cloak his throw and make it appear two feet away. Pity the poor batters. Dodger after Dodger watched that one Livo pitch seem to run way inside only to have it called a strike. Because that pitch actually came right over the heart of the plate. In real time, you see what the batter saw - a ball inside. But in slow-mo, you see what the umpire saw - a ball right smack dab in the zone with a pretty ribbon tied to an engraved tag that says "strike."

It's eerie. Those aren't pitches, they're koans.

Washington at Los Angeles. Nationals 6, Dodgers 2.

Robby must be having flashbacks to his days in Korea, what with all the casualties the Nationals have taken the last few days. Whenever a player goes down, F-Rob hears the blades of the evac choppers and the splattery hubbub of the MASH operating room in the hills south of Yonchon.

No wonder he's not using Chief Cordero - the risk of injury is just too high these days to send an actual closer out onto the field.

Sunday it was Joey Eischen and a broken arm. Monday it was Sledgehammer and a pulled hamstring. Both are out for weeks. Neither is a season-killing loss to the Nationals, but both injuries significantly reduce our depth. We don't really have a big-league lefty to replace Eischen in the bullpen, and the loss of Sledge this early takes us from a team with extra outfielders to a team with just enough. If the idea of Ryan Church as a starter is your idea of "enough."

Of course, we won the game, but as the general said, another such victory will destroy us.

Esteban pitched a humdinger, a real humdinger, for the second straight outing. This is 2003-vintage Good Esteban we're seeing, not the 2004-era alternate-universe Evil E-Lo BallWonk feared we'd signed. Esteban got the win he deserved, and even if it would have been nice to have an extra inning from him, the Baerga pinch-hit was key to the seventh-inning rally and the bullpen carried the day. Majewski pitched with majesty to retire the side in the seventh, Hector Carrasco did the same in the eighth, and Rauch showed great future-starter stuff in the ninth. Sure, Milton Bradley tagged him for a home run, but you're gonna give up a homer from time to time. The important thing is to make it a solo shot, which Rauch did, and the extra run didn't do the Dodgers a lick of good.

The offense, as is our wont, used the first six innings to lull the Dodgers into a false sense of complacency. Then we scored two in each of the last three innings.

In the course of things, Guzman walked and got a hit, actually driving in two runs. Guzzy's batting average is firmly above the Mendoza line. It's gotta be the cornrows; makes him look like Ghost Dog:

New Yawk at Washington, Weekend Roundup.

Nationals 5, Metropolitans 1

Nationals 5, Metropolitans 3

Metropolitans 6, Nationals 3

Seriously, that was ugly. You know those monkeys with the bright pink butts? They have those butts to help them, um, find dates. They're like monkey personals ads. Now, those hairless pink-butt monkeys are ugly enough on their own, but then when you throw in the mental image of those monkeys going on a date and then getting to pink-monkey-butt third base, well, that's some strong ugly. And that's about how ugly things were when the Metropolitans came to town.

For one thing, there's the Metropolitans themselves. A team that costs so much and stinks so bad is just plain offensive. Not quite pink-monkey-butt-mating ugly, but definitely in the Imelda-Marcos-shoe-collection ballpark of ugly. It's just a sin; the Mets could have stunk just as badly from 2001 to 2004 for about $100 million less per year. That's almost a quarter of a billion dollars of wasted baseball payroll. You could hire the Washington Nationals 20 times over for the money the Metropolitans have paid to stink since the Yankees swept them in the Subway Series.

Friday wasn't so ugly, actually, except for the Metropolitans and for Guzman's throwing error. Another fine Livo start, Johnson back in the lineup, and Washington putting New Yawk in its place. A good night, all told.

Saturday, though, brought the ugly, despite Tomo-Sensie's shiny, sparkling, beautiful beautiful gem of a pitching performance. Ugly weather, that is. BallWonk has seen oceans less wet than the air at RFK Saturday night. Of the Great Lakes, Superior is pretty wet. But there was probably more water in RFK Saturday than in some of the smaller Great Lakes, like Ontario. The basepaths were not so much wet dirt as dirty water. The National Zoo actually brought its hippos over to second base to swim and forage in the six-foot-deep brown stream the basepath had become.

When F-Rob finally got up the gumption to point out the obvious to the umpire, he got ejected for his troubles.

"I say, sir, but have you noticed that it is raining somewhat prodigiously?"

"Watch yourself, manager!"

"Be that as it may, it seems rather a bit wet to continue this game, what what."

"Are you telling me my job?"

"Far from it, my good man, but might this not be an appropriate time to consider suspending play in hopes that a more opportune climate may shortly present itself - or, failing that, declaring this contest to be complete?"

"That's it, fella, you're outta here!"

At which point the umpires waited about five minutes and then called a rain delay, as F-Rob had graciously asked them to do. The rain delay proved terminal, as it was obvious it would, and that was that. An eight inning game that was more endured than played.

But the ugliest game was yet to come. Sunday, things started out well enough. Riker singled to score two runs in the third, then Guillen the Barbarian sacrificed to score Bluegrass. Three runs in the first half of the game - not bad by Washington standards. We're last-minute scorers, after all. We seem to approach run-scoring a bit like Congress approaches budget-passing. Usually, we prefer to pass an omnibus bill for like six runs in the seventh or eighth, so getting a few runs early is progress.

But the lead didn't last. Right away, the Metropolitans scored two of their own to tie at three. And so it went, until F-Rob mysteriously yanked John Patterson for Eischen when the New Yorkers pinch-hit KazMat for Heilman. KazMat is a switch-hitter. And then just about the ugliest thing that can happen on a ballfield came to pass: the pitcher overextended on an infield play, came down bad, and broke his arm. Good-bye, Joey. Will you get the other Nationals to sign you cast? BallWonk hopes so. Get well soon; we'll see you in July.

There aren't a lot of worse things that can happen on the field of play than the pitcher breaking his arm making a defensive play. An outfielder could come in to pitch for vanity's sake and ruin his throwing arm. A batter could get beaned in the head and die. An outfielder could chase a fly ball to the wall and kill himself going through the wall. The Yankees could play the Braves in the World Series. Cristian Guzman could bat cleanup. Short of those things, a pitcher breaking his arm is about as bad as it gets.

And if you're going to pull the starter prematurely so that a good reliever breaks his arm in a tie game, you can at least send in your closer to pitch the ninth instead of leaving your setup man in to lose the game. Which F-Rob did. Guess a 3-3 tie going into the ninth isn't technically a save situation, so you can't use your closer. Why, that would be madness!

Oh, and Guzman added a dose of ugly in the seventh by attempting, and failing, so steal third. With Bluegrass, a lefty, at bat. Some people, and you know who you are, claim that despite his bad bat, Guzman is an asset for his speed. Rule of thumb: If Mike Piazza can throw you out, you ain't fast. Before catching Riker and Guzman on Sunday night, Piazza hadn't thrown out a base-stealer since 1997.

Oh, and you know what else was ugly? Having to suffer Joe Morgan spew his bullhockey about our beloved team. Is Morgan the worst color man in the history of sports broadcasting, or is he engaged in a subtle campaign of subversive satire? Time and again, the screen would show one thing, and Morgan would describe events differently, as if the audience couldn't see the pictures on our screens. And then they'd show a replay, confirming in slow-motion that reality was different from what Morgan had said, but Morgan would go right on describing his fantasy world as if the replay wasn't proving him wrong.

Like when Eischen went down and grabbed his forearm near the elbow. "He grabbed his wrist," Morgan said, "he must have hurt his wrist. That's a pretty common thing to do." Then came the replay, showing Eischen grab his arm, not his wrist, in slow-motion. Three times. And yet Morgan kept talking about Eischen grabbing his wrist. Eischen never touched his wrist, Joe. Are you watching this game?

And just a few minutes later came the "tag" on Guzman. Now, Piazza got the throw to third in time, and if Piazza can get the throw to the fielder in time to get you out, you deserve to be out. BallWonk is not complaining that Guzman was called out; he had it coming for attempting that boneheaded steal and vaporizing our last, best shot at a rally. But replays from two different angles showed clearly that David Wright never tagged Guzman. He brushed his glove near to Guzman's leg, but never touched it. "Yup, he got the tag in," Morgan said, as if we couldn't see on our screens incontrovertible proof that the tag was never made.

Aaargh! Please, for the love of all that is right and true in the world, please let ESPN assign someone other than Buck and Morgan when the Nationals appear nationwide.

Fortunately, MASN is now on DirecTV channel 262, so we don't need no stinkin' ESPN broadcast. But still. No one deserves to have Joe Morgan narrate his team's games. It's against the Geneva Conventions, or anyway it ought to be.

So that was a whole lot of ugly, even if we did win the series and sink the Metropolitans to their rightful place beneath the Nationals in the division standings.