In the aftermath of Chien-Ming Wang’s steady and powerful outing against the Atlanta Braves on Saturday, Davey Johnson faced the Washington baseball press. In light of Wang’s performance against the Braves, he was asked, would he recommend that the righty be offered a contract for 2012? Johnson didn’t hesitate: “No doubt about it,” he said, and then repeated it. “No doubt about it.”

Washington fans might rise to applaud this statement, particularly in light of Wang’s recent outings. The righty, signed by Mike Rizzo while still recovering from a blown out shoulder, has proven to be a good gamble. Wang has pitched no fewer than five innings in each of his last ten starts, and has pitched six complete in his last two — which includes today’s four hit 4-1 spectacular against Atlanta.

Johnson made it clear — he would have left Wang in to complete the game, but the bullpen needed work, and performed to their usual standards, with Gorzelanny, Clippard and Storen combining to hold the Braves to two hits in three complete innings of work. Drew Storen notched his 41st save on the season, and it’s probably not his last.

Wang made it look ho-hum-easy. He threw 85 pitches, 51 of them for strikes. His sinker looked as good as, or even better than, normal — a fact mentioned by Johnson, who said that the more Wang’s pitched, the more progress he’s made. His teammates in the infield agree. “He works quickly and he knows what he is going to do,” second sacker Danny Espinosa said. “When he has such a good plan like that, you stay active in case a ground ball [comes your way]. It keeps you in the game.”

Wang was even able to help his own cause at the plate. In the bottom of the 4th, he singled past first base into right field — scoring Espinosa. It was his first hit as a National, and his first in the majors. The crowd stood and roared its approval. “I had a bad record before,” Wang said of his hit. “All I wanted to do was just swing the bat, make contact, and I was kind of lucky. It was a line drive.

In notching their 77th win of the season, the Nationals put the Tomahawks in a squeeze — the Bravos needed a victory in their race for the Wild Card, and are now just two games ahead of the Musials. “We’ve got to win ballgames,” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez. “It’s nice to watch the scoreboard and all of that. But we’ve got to win the games that are in front of us.”

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: There was an ovation for Chien-Ming Wang among the section’s regulars — and for Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, who might have been making his last start (or his last appearance) in a Nationals uniform. That fact was not lost on Davey Johnson, who noted that the Hall-of-Fame bound catcher has remained a positive force in the clubhouse. “He’s just fun to watch,” a section-mate added . . .

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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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You can’t mention the words Milwaukee Brewers without adding “surging” — as in, the “surging” Milwaukee Brewers. After taking three from the Colorado Rockies that left the Helton’s reeling, the Brewers decided that they’d had enough of Corey Hart’s 0 for 11 start of the season, and the big bopping right fielder victimized the Nationals with three home runs and seven RBIs.

But even without Hart’s heroics, the Nationals would have fallen to the Brewers’ bats: the Anacostia Nine accounted for eight hits (which included a Michael Morse dinger) and just three runs — but the game was not as close as the final 11-3 score indicated. Without pitching the team is starting to look like road kill to the rest of the National League. Washington starter Tom Gorzelanny looked particularly ineffective on Monday, giving up eight hits and six runs over five innings. The Brewers, meanwhile, are just three games behind the Cardinals in the N.L. Central, as the Reds have dropped six in a row.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Adam LaRoche was put on the 15-day DL with a sore shoulder. But it might be worse than fifteen days. Isn’t there a pattern here somewhere? Last year, Jason Marquis had much the same problem, tried to play through it — and couldn’t. It took a second year for the free agent signing to work out. With Ryan Zimmerman out until June, LaRoche sidelined and Rick Ankiel rehabbing, the Nationals are playing with one-third of the starting line-up they started with in April . . . Stephen Strasburg is now throwing off a mound, which means that he’s playing catch off a mound, not pitching off of one. Hey great. See you in 2012 . . .

Book ‘Em Danno: Joe Torre, MLB’s head of baseball operations has fined Nats’ G.M. Mike Rizzo an undisclosed amount of cash for confronting umpires after Thursday’s 1-0 loss to the Mets in New York. Rizzo and Nats’ catcher Ivan Rodriguez were upset with a call on Jayson Werth that snuffed out a late inning Nationals rally, and confronted the umpiring crew in a stadium tunnel after the game. Rizzo had no comment on the fine, except to say that he would always stick up for his team and organization. “I’ve always got the manager’s, the coaches’ and the players’ back,” Rizzo told a reporter. “Whenever I need to put myself on the line to do so, that’s my job, so I’m willing to do it.”

Ya just gotta love Mikey (and we sure do), but maybe he’s gotta bigger problems than umpires. Yardbarker has put together stats on Jayson Werth and Adam LaRoche’s slumps and concluded that the first two months of the season are actually “among the worst months these guys have ever had.” A quick scan of the stats shows this is probably so; and leads us to the conclusion that as statistics are only terrific when predicting past performances, they show what we’ve been saying all along: Adam LaRoche needs shoulder surgery, and Jayson Werth needs Ryan Zimmerman . . .

After struggling at the plate for the first month of the season — and missing out on opportunities to notch wins against tough opponents — the Nationals pulled off a stunning come-from-behind, extra innings rally on Wednesday in Atlanta, beating the Braves in 11 innings, 7-3. “I know it’s a cliché, but that was a total team victory,” Nats’ skipper Jim Riggleman said. “Just an outstanding win.”

The Nats’ rally started when they most needed it: with the Braves ahead 3-1 in the ninth inning, Laynce Nix and Jerry Hairston singled and Matt Stairs walked to load the bases with one out, and pinch hitter Alex Cora put a Craig Kimbrel offering over the mound and up the middle to score two and tie the game. “I don’t hit the ball hard,” Cora said of the Kimbrel pitch. “When he threw me the 2-and-1 slider, I had a pretty good feeling he was going to throw me a fastball next.”

The Nats followed these heroics with an almost superhuman 11th inning, when Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez got on base after being plunked by Scott Linebrink. An Alex Cora single then moved Pudge to third, and with one on and one out Ian Desmond put a Linebrink offering down the left field line to score both Rodriguez and Cora. The Nats then piled on: Desmond stole third and Jayson Werth hit his sixth homer of the season into the left field seats. The satisfying victory helped to erase the three game sweep the Nats endured in Philadelphia at the beginning of the road trip, and set up a possible sweep of the Bravos in Atlanta tonight.

Those Are The Details And Now For The Headlines: Entering Wednesday, the only team worse than the Nats in team batting was the San Diego Padres, but the Friars stroked 23 hits in a 13-6 spanking of the Brewers. Ryan Ludwick, who’s been just awful, was 3-6 and raised his average to . . . ah, .195. The outburst put the Nats firmly in last place in team batting stats. The Nats are also last in OBP. But the news isn’t all bad: the Anacostia Nine are ninth in team ERA. Oh, and in the only stat that matters, they’ve won three more games than the Padres, who are an embarrassing 7-14 at home . . .

People are starting to recognize Drew Storen as the best closer in baseball. The young righty has pitched just over twenty innings this year and wracked up eight saves. His ERA stands at an eye-popping 0.44. Adam Kilgore has a good piece on Storen on line this morning and we don’t have much to add. Except this: baseball aficionados have spent the early part of this season oohing and ahhing about Craig Kimbrel (above, in the Atlanta dugout last night) and his fastball and his poise and his potential and yada, yada, yada — but Storen made him look just average on Thursday.

Kimbrel blew his third save of the season on Wednesday: Storen hasn’t blown one yet. And the young righty picked up a win (he’s now 3-1) in Wednesday’s scoreless outing, with Tyler Clippard closing out the game in the 11th. But Storen was his usual unhittable self  . . .

The Nats’ bats came alive on Sunday, as the Anacostia Nine banged out 22 hits and thirteen runs in a twin bill (and three game) sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers. But the unleashing of Washington’s lumber was only a part of the story: Jason Marquis and Livan Hernandez registered two strong starting pitching performances, with the near perfect bullpen putting the Nationals one game over .500 as the team now heads to St. Louis. Second sacker Danny Espinosa was (arguably) the hitting star in both contests — homering in the 8-4 first game and slugging a bases clearing triple in the 5-1 second game.

The victory in the first game came against Milwaukee ace Yovani Gallardo, who pitched well for the first four innings, before having difficulty in the 5th: Alex Cora and Jason Marquis singled before Espinosa hit his dinger. The Brewers stuck with Gallardo, but he was chased in the 6th after a single by Michael Morse and ground rule double from Ian Desmond. Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez followed with a home run into the right field seats. Jason Marquis, meanwhile, pitched his now-typical ball-in-the-dirt style, inducing 12 ground ball outs. After a shaky start, Marquis threw seven strong innings, striking out four.

The second game victory belonged to Espinosa — and Livan Hernandez, who pitched a six hit seven inning beauty, giving up only one walk. Drew Storen followed, giving up just one hit in two innings of work — which gave him his first save of the season, and an almost unheard of 0.87 ERA. After the second game, Nats’ fans breathed a sigh of relief: the teams’ bats had come alive — with nearly everyone contributing. Adam LaRoche registering three hits on the day (with one home run), Ian Desmond put one into the left field seats on a line drive (he lifted his average to .217), and Jerry Hairston, Jr. had a 3 for 3 second game that included a home run, his first of the season.

Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez was the hero again on Sunday in New York, providing a clutch single in the 11th inning to give his team a 3-2 lead, as the Washington Nationals went on to seal a 7-3 victory. Laynce Nix padded the lead with a three run home run that put the game out of reach. The win allowed the Nats to exit from a tough New York series with a 2-1 edge in games, and brought their record to 4-5 on the season. The Nats will take Monday off, before facing the Philadelphia Phillies in Washington beginning on Tuesday. It looks as if “Pudge” could be shaping a new role on the team — not only as back-up to Wilson Ramos, but as a player you have to bring to the plate when the game is on the line.

Guess Who’s In First Place? Yeah, okay — the Phillies. But over in the AL Central the Cleveland Indians have compiled an astonishing 7-2 record and lead the Pale Hose by a full game. The Tribe, it seems, is hitting on all cracked cylinders: off-season acquisition Orlando Cabrera is hitting .375, youngster Michael Brantley is hitting lead-off (and getting on base), fleet footed shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera is racking up hits (and strike outs), and yesterday righty sophomore Josh Tomlin threw 6.2 in taming the Seattle Awfuls. This will make former Nats’ great and Cleveland manager Manny Acta feel good — he was telling anyone who was listening in Spring Training that the Indians were a sleeper and that they would compete for the top spot with the Twinkies and Konerkos. So, break up the Indians — right? Well, not just yet.

NL Least fans will remember that, back in 2009, the Florida Marlins began the season 11-1. That was their record on April 19. Everyone around the league was oohing and ahhing about the Fish, with some commentators saying that they were “the team to beat” in the National League. And it’s true: the Marlins were on fire, they were playing well — but not well enough. On April 27, the Marlins still had 11 wins, but with 8 losses. On May 8, they were 16-14. They were a solid team, even a very good team, but they weren’t great and they certainly weren’t the team to beat in the National League. They had come back to earth. On May 23, they were six games under .500. We all breathed a sign of relief: the sun rose in the east, set in the west — and the Florida Marlins were still the Florida Marlins. Of course (Marlins fans will claim), their team went on to have a pretty good year: they finished in second place in the NL East, which was good enough for . . . ah, second place in the NL East.

The same thing could happen to the fast-starting Indians. But it’s doubtful: they aren’t an average team, they’re a franchise that’s rebuilding. They won’t be 16-14 on May 8, they’ll be 14-16, or worse. They aren’t even the very good 2009 Florida Marlins: they’re the not-very-good 2011 Cleveland Indians. The Indians have some “good young players,” including underrated right fielder Shin-Soo Choo, who’s one of the best young players in baseball. Which is to say: when sports yackers tell you that a team has “some good young players,” what it means is “they better have, because they don’t have much else.” Of course, we can’t be totally negative. If the Tribe finishes the year at .500, it will be one of this year’s most dramatic stories. One thing’s for sure: back in 2009, the same columnists and baseball writers that said that the Marlins were the team to beat had forgotten all about them in September.

Jordan Zimmermann pitched into the sixth inning, the Nats rapped out nine hits, and Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez got two badly needed RBIs for his first hit of the season as the Washington Nationals surged past the New York Mets, 6-2, on Friday. It now seems all but certain that the young, but steady, Zimmermann is a commanding influence in the Nats’ starting rotation — which has been outstanding in the 2011 campaign’s early going. Zimmermann added to his own growing resume with an unexpected, but badly needed, two run RBI single of his own in the second inning. The victory brought the Nationals to 3-4 in the young season, with the team adding to their own legendary mastery of the Mets. The Nats are now 6-3 in their last nine games against the Metropolitans.

Once again the bullpen was superb, providing the Nationals with 3.2 innings of one hit baseball, while striking out three and walking two. The only unsteady presence was Chad Gaudin, who is having problems mastering the strike zone. The key contributor in the pen once again was Tyler Clippard, who is emerging as one of baseball’s most effective relievers. Clippard came on in relief of Gaudin, with runners on second and third and one out — and retired the side. “In those situations, you have to set the tone and throw strikes. I was able to do that,” Clippard said. “The last few outings, I’m trying to build some confidence. We have been playing good ball. We tried to change the momentum today and get it on our side. I made some good pitches to where we were able to do that.”

Trouble For The Kings of Queens: You can see why Mets fans are worried. Friday’s win came at the expense of Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, one of the mainstays of the shaky Mets rotation. But Dickey has problems of his own, including a nagging nail problem that hampers his control. New manager Terry Collins lifted Dickey for this reason, despite the pitcher’s claim that he could go another inning. “I tried to hang in there as long as I could,” Dickey said. Other post-game comments centered on Carlos Beltran, who started in right field at Citi Field for the first time in his career. Beltran told the press that he felt “comfortable” in right and that he is seeing the ball well at the plate. It’s good that Beltran is seeing the ball well, but that’s not the issue — the issue is whether he can run. And the answer is that he can’t: Beltran’s knees are wobbly, which is clear every time he takes the field.

This isn’t the only worry for Mets fans. The continuing financial problems of the Wilpons mean that the Mets will not be able to afford the kind of acquisitions the team desperately needs, the starting rotation is stocked with question marks, Ike Davis is not turning into the kind of superstar Mets fans had hoped for, the farm system is thin-thin-thin, the team is crippled by hefty salaries for so-so players (like Francisco Rodriguez, who was booed by the fans during team introductions on Friday), the team’s ace (Johan Santana) may not pitch at all this season, no one knows when Jason Bay will return (or whether he’ll return as the Jason Bay of old), and “ace” Mike Pelfrey might be imploding.

There is good news: Jose Reyes is healthy, David Wright remains an elite third baseman and the bullpen is young and strong. And new manager Terry Collins (not known for his patience) might be just the kind of go-get-em personality the team needs. Still, Met fans are likely to be disappointed by the team in the coming campaign and it may be past time (as one scout told Sports Illustrated) for the franchise to “blow it up and start over.”