With Chad Billingsley on the mound in the top of the 1st inning, the Washington Nationals loaded the bases with no outs — with Billingsley reeling from a walk, a hit batter and two singles. But the Nationals could only muster a single run in that inning, as Billingsley ended the threat with three straight strikeouts, and went on to tame the Nationals and secure a 3-1 L.A. victory.

The Nationals’ defeat brought the team to a disappointing 3-6 record on their Atlanta-Houston-L.A. road trip as they headed home for a crucial set of games against their N.L East opponents. “We should have [broken it open] in that first inning,” Nationals manager Davey Johnson said. “We couldn’t put the ball in play with nobody out, and that hurt us. And then Billingsley settled down and pitched an effective ballgame. We swung and missed a lot today.”

Like Billingsley, Nationals starter Jason Marquis was shaky in the early going: the Washington righty gave up two early runs, but then settled down to pitch six innings, while giving up three runs on five hits. “It was a battle,” Marquis said of his outing. “I was trying to keep my team in the game as best as possible. I had some unfortunate breaks. That’s the way the game goes. We just weren’t able to break through.” How effective was L.A.’s pitching? The Nationals were only able to muster two hits for the entire game, and never had another one after the first inning.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: There are all kinds of grand slams — there are regular grand slams, there are walk-off grand slams (a victory when a grand slam provides a walk-off victory by more than a single run), there are “ultimate” walk-off grand slams (a walk-off grand slam that gives a team a victory by a single run), there are inside-the-park walk-off grand slams (you get the idea), and then there are “ultimate” walk-off inside-the-park grand slams.

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We’ll just bet that Yankees are happy they didn’t trade Robinson Cano — but they tried. Cano was offered to the Texas Rangers in the deal for Alex Rodriguez in 2004, but the Rangers took a pass. The Yankees then tried to trade him for Kansas City’s Carlos Beltran, (passing through KC on your way to stardom is almost a requirement), but he went to Houston instead. Then Cano was offered back to Texas for Randy Johnson. They got another “no.” It’s almost as if the Yankees didn’t want him, or maybe wanted someone else more.

You have to wonder why. As Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have aged, Cano has emerged as the glue in the Yankees’ infield. He won a Gold Glove last year (along with a Silver Slugger, his second), and he’ll probably win another one in 2011. Cano is in his seventh season with a career BA of .308, and he just came off a season when he hit 29 home runs — and he’s on a pace to equal that this year. It’s never been a surprise that he’s had a kind of relaxed power, so those who know say it’s not a big shock that he won last night’s Home Run Derby.

Yankees fans aver that second has been the weakest position in team history. That may be, but Tony Lazzeri, who played for the Yankees for twelve years (from 1926 through 1937) was a steady and an elegant presence. He was a kind of merry prankster, which is reflected in photos of him. He hit for power (the first major leaguer to hit two grand slams in one game), and was one of the best clutch hitters of his time. In any other city and on any other team, they would have carried Lazzari through the streets on their shoulders. He was sandwiched between the Yankee greats (much like Cano), which is too bad: what a player.

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Hall of Fame manager Dick Williams, who led three teams to the World Series, died this week at the age of 82. Perhaps most remembered for leading Charlie Finley’s Oakland A’s to World Championships in 1972 and 1973, he cut his managing teeth as the skipper for the 1967 Red Sox. Just two years retired as a player (the last two with the Sox after stints with several teams) Sox owner Tom Yawkey tapped Williams to try to do something, anything, with the ninth place boys from Boston.

Williams, always known for his pugnacity, showed it early after being named manager. Giving his thoughts on the upcoming 1967 season Williams was confident in his squad saying, “We’ll win more than we lose.” The Boston press corps was incredulous. The Sox hadn’t done much in the way of winning since the ’46 campaign when they lost the Series to the Cards in seven games. And in 1966 they finished 72-90, 26 games out of the running. They were, in a word, bad.

A 10-game turn-around wasn’t impossible of course. But the Sox would field essentially the same team as the year before, Williams had never managed in the Bigs and, after all, this was Boston. Who did he think he was? A Depression-era kid, all Williams knew was hard work and the “kids” (as the Sox were affectionately known given that the vast majority of them were in their 20s) were in for a lot of it. A no-bull type of guy, all Williams expected from his team was their best. He got it.

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Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez’s eighth inning pinch hit single scored Rick Ankiel from second, giving the Nationals a 4-3 win and a split in their doubleheader against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday. The win followed a 5-3 loss to the Ahoys in the first game, when the Pirates feasted on the Nationals’ bullpen, getting ten hits while the Nationals once again looked ineffective with runners in scoring position. The Nationals left 19 men on base in the first game loss.

The Nationals continue to struggle with the bats — spraying just five hits in the second game, with Ryan Zimmerman and Jayson Werth going 0-7. For the first time this year, the fans began to boo Jayson Werth — who was 0-3 with two strikeouts in the 4-3 win. Davey Johnson remains confident that it’s only a matter of time before the Nationals break out of their team slump. The Nationals are batting .232 as a team, worst in the National League.

But Nats’ pitching remains superb. In the first game of the doubleheader, Livan Hernandez was his usual professional self, allowing just six hits and two runs in seven complete. But the Pirates were able to get to reliever Sean Burnett, who gave up back-to-back homers to Garrett Jones and Andrew McCutchen. The dingers proved to be the difference in the game, victimizing a reliever who arrived in Washington in 2009 after being traded from Pittsburgh.

After the first game loss, Davey Johnson expressed frustration with the sputtering offense. “We had the right guys up with the bases loaded and we just couldn’t do the job, and the back end of the bullpen didn’t do a good job today,” he said. The second game of the doubleheader provided salvation for the Nats, who once again had a clutch hit to win a game. The win was also a salvation of sorts for John Lannan who, like Hernandez, pitched seven complete innings — though it was reliever Ryan Mattheus who got the win. Drew Storen clinched his twentieth save.

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: The boo birds were out for Jayson Werth on Saturday, but few of them were sitting in Section 129. Which is not to say that there wasn’t an undercurrent of disenchantment with the right fielder. “What the hell is wrong with this guy?” a section regular asked. He wasn’t really looking for an answer, so there wasn’t one. And there were shaking heads in the second game, when Ryan Zimmerman struck out looking. “Do you think anyone is telling these guys not to do that?” Zimmerman was 0-4 in Game 2, leaving four runners on base. “Maybe he’s still injured,” one fan said. “He just doesn’t look like he’s comfortable out there.”

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Fans of the Cardinals should have known something was wrong the minute they showed up in Milwaukee last Friday: before taking the field, the Cardinals learned that the Brewers would be wearing the same uniforms they had in 1982 — when they faced off against the Cardinals in the first game of the World Series. In that 1982 first game match-up, “Harvey’s Wallbangers” stunned the Cardinals 10-0. And so (as justice would have it), the 2011 Brewers (in their “throwbacks”) reprised the heroics of the Milwaukee Younts, scorching Cardinal pitching for eight unanswered runs.

It was downhill from there: the Brewers swept the Cardinals in three games and vaulted past them into first place in the N.L. Central. In truth, the series wasn’t even that close. The Brewers out-hit, out-fielded, outran and out and out outplayed the Cardinals, victimizing them with roundhouse howitzers from Prince Fielder (two in three games), Rickie Weeks, Ryan Brown and Corey Hart. That is to say — the Cardinals were shelled.

The series was (as Viva El Birdos notes), “Deja Vu all over again” — the second time in the 2011 campaign that the Cardinals showed up in a rival city in first place, and left the city in second. That had happened before, when St. Louis made an ill-advised trip to Cincinnati. Deja Vu? Maybe: but as “El Birdos” notes, the Cardinals “limped” into Milwaukee without the services of uber-slugger Matt Holliday, third baseman David Freese, second base wunderkind Allen Craig, or fifth starter Kyle McClellan. Still, it’s hard to feel sorry for the Gibsons: their bullpen stinks, Lance Berkman has no business hitting .317 and Kyle Lohse hasn’t had an ERA lower the 3.50 in his life (and probably never will again).

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It’s not exactly Tinker to Evers to Chance, but the trio of Jordan Zimmermann, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen have a chance to be more than just a passing topic. The three, when they are on their game (and when the Nationals have a lead, no matter how small), can with almost near certainty bring home an every-fourth-day (or fifth day) victory for the Anacostia Nine. Their talent was on full display in San Francisco on Tuesday, as the trio combined to give the Nationals an it’s-about-time 2-1 win that tied the away series with the world champs at one game apiece.

Our San Francisco readers (and we have them, and here they are), will tell you that they would have bet that the Nationals would lose this game in the bottom of the 8th — when Tyler Clippard walked Cody Ross to start the inning. Nats fans could be heard groaning, particularly after the walks of Monday night’s 13 inning marathon. But Clippard struck out Andres Torres (phew!), Conor Galaspie popped out to shortstop Ian Desmond and Freddy Sanchez (so many times the hero) flied out to Roger Bernadina. Clippard had come through, registering his 14th hold.

The Giants had one more chance, against Drew Storen. The Nationals closer has been less than perfect lately, so his appearance in the bottom of the 9th was no sure thing. We should (perhaps) have more faith: but with the Nationals bats silent (the hero at the plate Tuesday was pitcher Zimmermann, the bunter), a tie was a simple and single swing away. But Storen put away Aubrey Huff, Nate Schierholtz and Aaron Rowand to end the game. The heroes were the trio of Nats’ pitchers — the Tinker to Evers to Chance of the Nats rotation. (more…)

The Washington Nationals’ bullpen couldn’t hold onto a hard fought Washington lead, and the Nats were downed by a modest but effective late-inning rally in Milwaukee, 7-6 on Tuesday. The loss came at the expense of Nationals’ reliever Henry Rodriguez, who gave up a two out, two strike bleeder down the left field line to Brewers’ catcher Jonathan Lucroy in the 8th inning. “That’s baseball,” Rodriguez said after the game. “You guys saw what happened. It’s part of the game. It was a jam shot, and it fell in.” The hit was just enough for the Brewers to notch their eighth straight victory at home.

The bullpen, which has been stellar for the Nationals this year, looks like it’s starting to fade. Tyler Clippard was ineffective in the 7th, Rodriguez (who came in for Sean Burnett) was ineffective in the eighth — but nearly the entire crew has been struggling of late. Nationals skipper Jim Riggleman noted that the Washington pen has been the team’s highlight reel, but that it was almost fated that it would go through a rough time: “Our bullpen’s done a great job holding leads, and it just didn’t happen tonight.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: It doesn’t look good for Adam LaRoche. Bill Ladson writes that the first baseman has major shoulder issues and could face surgery — but first he’ll rest his arm, which includes at least two weeks of not touching a baseball . . . Michael Morse is swinging the bat. After a great Spring Training, Morse had trouble out of the gates. His grand slam home run last night is evidence that his power swing is back, but he’s also hitting for average. In mid-May he was hitting .235, he exited last night’s game at .282. He’s hitting over .400 in his last ten games . . .

It’s funny the way things happen. Over the winter, some Nationals fans were urging Rizzo, Riggleman & Company to forego a free agent contract for a first base replacement for the departed Adam Dunn (who’s hitting all of .192 in the Windy City) and put Morse at first base. Part of the argument was that the Nationals could spend their money more wisely on an outfielder with a good bat: to replace the departed Josh Willingham (who’s hitting .233 for the White Elephants). Now they have their wish. It looks like the Nationals are about to go with a set line-up of Rick Ankiel in center, Roger Bernadina in left — and Morse at first. That’s not bad, except that Morse will not only have to keep hitting, but step up his defensive game. Adam LaRoche was a wizard at first, and his glove will be missed . . .

One of our more regular readers and a CFG fan (here he is), sent along a piece from Wired magazine (that’s a first, because most of our readers read Maxim) noting the May 24 anniversary of the first baseball game played under the lights. It’s a pretty good read, and notes that erecting lights at Crosley Field was part of a desperate measure to keep the Reds in the Queen City (that would be Cincinnati of all places). Lights caught on around the rest of the league, the article noted, except in Chicago, where lights (and winning) were a late addition . . .

And speaking of firsts, if you haven’t read the article on the New York Mets ownership (and the Fred Wilpon-Bernie Madoff fiasco) in the New Yorker you should. The article is long, but you can do it (and you’re all grown up now, and it’s time), and it gives a fair and even sympathetic picture of the Mets’ owner and his struggles to keep his team. We were all set to dislike the guy (as with everything else blue and orange), but ended up thinking that, despite all of his problems with financing, Wilpon not only seems like a good sort, but (surprise, surprise) knows his baseball . . .