It is a hallmark of a struggling team that they will defeat themselves — and despite their win against the Birds on Saturday, the Nats came close to doing so, rallying to win a messy 7-6 contest. Included in the win was the second inside-the-park home run at Nats Park in four days — the result of a Nyjer Morgan gaffe in center field that brought jeers from the hometown folks — and the ejection of Washington first base coach Dan Radison. But while it might be that a struggling team defeats itself, the opposite is also true: that a good team that is struggling will find a way to win. It was the hitters that did that for the Nats on Saturday, relying on Roger Bernadina, the under-utilized Alberto Gonzalez, Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham to build a solid mid-game surge as they went on to defeat an Orioles team that seems to play well against their I-95 competitors.

The Nats won for only the second time in nine games — bringing the team back to .500 at 22-22. While the Nats win was less a headline than Nyjer Morgan’s tirade in center field, the team’s outburst of hitting put the Anacostia Nine back on track as they face the heart of the season. The Nationals exploded for fifteen hits, including 3-4 days from Ryan Zimmerman and Cristian Guzman — who is hitting a torrid .343. And for the first time in more than a week, the bullpen was nearly perfect, giving up a single hit in 3.2 innings of work.

If it wasn’t for the surprising steadiness of Nats pitching (and the success of the Clippard-Capps late-innings combination), the continued solid hitting of veteran Cristian Guzman might well be the talk of baseball. The former regular shortstop (his position in the middle infield now taken by rising rookie Ian Desmond), began the season as a spot-starter, having been relegated by the Nats brain trust to sometime-play while Desmond and a series of failed platoons in right field kept him out of the starting line-up. But Nats skipper Jim Riggleman has had a difficult time keeping Guzman off the field: his hot bat at the top of the order has sparked innumerable Nats rallies, and Guzman is also devoid of the regular in-game errors that plagued him in the ’09 campaign. There continues to be talk of using Guzman as mid-season bait for a contending team, but that could well change — especially if Guzman continues to show that the Nats will need him for their own late-season push.