Anyone who watched the Nationals fall to the San Diego Padres, 7-3 on Thursday night could tell you what ails the team — but it’s a long list: lack of timely hitting, too many strike outs and, most surprising, a great collapsing bullpen. This last is the most surprising, because for a while there the Nationals had one of the best bullpens in the majors. Now, they can’t get anyone out.

The problem starts with Sean Burnett (and does not include Tyler Clippard, Drew Storen or Todd Coffey), but it extends to Henry Rodriguez and Cole Kimball. Last night, Burnett came in for Livan Hernandez — and immediately walked rookie Anthony Rizzo. Cole Kimball followed him, and walked pinch hitter Kyle Phillips. Henry Rodriguez followed suit: he registered two quick outs in the seventh, but then walked the bases loaded and threw a wild pitch. The Friars won the game, but the final score veils what was (at least in baseball terms) a “romp.”

Is this the team’s low point? “It was not a good game,” Nats’ manager Jim Riggleman said after the loss. “The effort and intensity [was] there, but it was not a good game. We had a couple of things that happened on the bases. We walked people. It was not a pretty game. I don’t know how else to say it.” In the postgame interview with MASN analyst Ray Knight, Riggleman was even more blunt — saying that coming into a game and walking hitters was “unacceptable.” Clearly, changes are on the way, including demotions or even trades. (more…)

There’s a reason why the Washington Nationals don’t like the Arizona’s Diamondbacks. Since the days of hotdogging Eric Byrnes, the D-Backs have been known as a showboating franchise with a nasty streak — and they proved it again during the just-concluded four game series with the Nationals.

While the Nationals were able to pull out a win in the 11th inning of the final game of the four game set (an inning that included a Michael Morse grand slam dinger), the series was noted for its HBP scoring notations: two hit batters in game one (Upton and Werth), Upton twice in game two, one  hit batter in game three (Werth, again) and five in game four (Upton, Werth, Morse and Espinosa — twice). By the end of the series detail-oriented scorers had notched nine unemotional HBPs in their books, with Upton being hit four times — and Werth three. Both teams anticipated a bench-clearing brawl (and it certainly would have cleared the air), but it never quite came.

The HBPs took their toll: by the time the final game had ended (nearly four-and-one-half hours after it began), Jason Marquis and D-Backs pitcher Esmerling Vasquez and both managers were ejected — and Justin Upton was being considered for an Oscar for his writhing reaction to a one-that-got-away pitch from Jason Marquis in the 6th.

On Saturday, Nats’ skipper Jim Riggleman, who probably saw this coming, rejected any Arizona contention that the Nats were targeting Upton: “I feel terrible that the same guy gets hit three times,” Riggleman said. “But clearly, the first night when he got hit, that put the tying run to the plate. Obviously, we don’t want that to happen.” The Diamondbacks didn’t believe him, so they targeted Werth in game four and, when they couldn’t get him, they went after Danny Espinosa.

The nasty plunking by both teams did little to offset a near-catastrophic Nationals loss in the final set-to: the Anacostia Nine were up 4-0 in the eighth, but the bullpen (with the lone exception of Tyler Clippard) couldn’t hold the lead. The Diamondbacks scored three in the bottom of the 9th (the result of an almost unheard of spate of just-a-little-outside wildness from Drew Storen), but the Nationals held off the Snakes in the 10th before scoring five on reliever Joe Paterson in the 11th.

A near disaster, then, for sure — but reminiscent in its own way (it’s a stretch, but if you could hum the theme for “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” right here, that might help) of any classic “Spaghetti Western,” where the good guy gets the nasty punk and rides off into the sunset: or in the case of the Nationals, onto a charter flight for California.

As it turned out, the Nationals scored runs when they needed them: with Wilson Ramos’ big bat coming through for a homer in the 8th, Roger Bernadina going 3-6, Danny Espinosa at 2-4 and and Morse’s blast in the 11th. The victory gave the Nationals a needed split in Phoenix, and they now head to San Francisco, where they face Timmy and the San Francisco McCoveys.

When the Nationals can’t pitch, they can’t hit — and when they can’t hit, they can’t pitch. But when they do both, they still need the ball to bounce the right way, and that hasn’t been happening lately. With their game knotted at four on Sunday, the Anacostia Nine simply needed to get out of the 9th and win it in the bottom of the inning, but a squibber off the bat of Ryan Ludwick and past a diving Ian Desmond scored Jorge Cantu to give the San Diego Padres a 5-4 win.

Was there any good news? If you think that a win is the best and only news there can be, then “no,” there wasn’t. But at least the Nationals began to hit, with Jayson Werth going 3-4 and Michael Morse continuing with his hot hitting. But Drew Storen, who has been struggling of late, was saddled with the loss — although reliever Tyler Clippard seemed to emerge from his late inning doldrums to register two innings of one hit ball. The jury is still out on Yunesky Maya, meanwhile, as the Cuban defector (who was called up from Syracuse) started strong, but then faded in the 5th.

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: The Nationals are now 5-11 in one run games, and still have to find a way to win the close ones. And there’s grumbling amongst Nationals fans, who wonder whether the team’s skipper is so enamored of speed and the hit and run that he runs the Nationals out of some games. The groans along the first base line were audible on Saturday, as fans grumbled when Michael Morse was caught stealing with Jerry Hairston at the plate and Matt Stairs on the deck. “He just ran us out of the game,” a Nats’ ticket holder groused . . .

There was a lot of talk amongst season ticket holders about Jayson Werth’s comments earlier this week. “He said his comments weren’t aimed at Riggleman, but I don’t buy it,” a regular in Row BB commented. “Ah, he’s just frustrated,” a fan responded. “He’s always been that way.” Another fan, a visitor from New York, chimed in: “Well, Bobby’s available.” This brought puzzled looks and a response: “Valentine? Forget about it. If you think Werth is angry now, just wait until Valentine gets here. Rizz [Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo] will never give up on Riggleman.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Josh Willingham says he loves it in Oakland, where he’s become the centerpiece of the White Elephant’s all-pitch, no-hit franchise. But Willingham hasn’t exactly been hitting the cover off the ball, which is why the Athletics got him to begin with — he’s hitting .238 and been reaching for pitches out of the zone. Playing in Oakland’s “Coliseum” might have something to do with it: in most ballparks a ball will get lost in the lights; in Oakland, a ball gets lost in the darkness. And the fences are far, far away: out where the California National Guard patrols.

But Oakland is playing good baseball and getting good pitching, which has taken the pressure off the struggling Willingham. The good news is that when Oakland doesn’t get the stellar pitching they’re used to, Willingham has a habit of putting a ball back where no one can get it. As he did this afternoon against the Orioles, parking a heater from uber rookie Zach Britton in the left field seats.

The Connie Macks went on to win, 6-4 and sweep the suddenly struggling Orioles. The A’s are worth watching; they lead the A.L. in ERA and a lurking close enough to the top of the A.L. West to make the Gunslingers and Belinskys sweat. The A’s never seem to run out of pitching: today they started Guillermo Moscoso. Oh come on, you remember Guillermo Moscoso — right? No? Well, join the club.

After Friday’s 17-5 runaway victory in Baltimore, the Washington Nationals were confident that their season-long slump was at an end — and that with their bats finally loosened (and their defense and pitching solid), the close wins that had eluded them for so long would start coming their way. There was nothing in Saturday’s 8-3 loss that dissuaded them from that, despite the team’s paltry seven hits.

But with Sunday’s disappointing 2-1 defeat, the result of a single shaky Jordan Zimmermann inning, the Nats might begin to think that even hitting well won’t help. The Nationals outhit the O’s in Baltimore on Sunday afternoon (8-4), and arguably outpitched them (Zimmermann was superb, actually), but the Nationals could not respond to a Vlad Guerrero dinger — which proved the difference in the game. While the Nationals came out of their interleague games versus the O’s with two losses, they weren’t outplayed by them; but it was a frustrating experience that has put the team four games under .500.

Aside from the 17 runs scored on Friday, it’s clear the team needs to find a way to generate offense. “It’s more of the same,” Nats’ manager Jim Riggleman said following the loss. “I’m glad we got baserunners out there. That’s better than not having them out there, but we are just not getting them in. That’s too bad, because we got another good pitching performance.” The Nationals now head to Milwaukee, where they’ll face the Brewers in three tough games: the Brewers have started to click, and are coming off a three game sweep of the Rockies.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Our readers (here they are) have been calling and writing — wondering whatever happened to our reporting on the Cubs-Red Sox series. And you know what? . . .  it’s a damn good question. But our board of directors decided that, after getting in late (“ladies and gentlemen, we have an unexpected delay . . . and will be here in Bridgeport for a few minutes”), we’ve decided the save the entry until tomorrow . . . er, later today.

That said, we would like to assure everyone that our team of writers (here they are) had a terrific time in Beantown, visiting the city’s most famous sites: traipsing through the Old North Church Yawkey Way, gawking at Lexington Green the Green Monster, and cramming ourselves full of Boston’s Fenway’s famous clam chowdah sausage and beer.

Oh, and the Cubs and Red Sox played three, and we were thrilled upset about the astonishing perfectly predictable results. Nothing we saw changed what we believed — the Cubs are a young and exciting old and interesting embarrassing team, while Red Sox Nation (gack!) is finally on track to contend with the Yanks and Rays.

You can’t blame Nationals fans for celebrating: after two embarrassing shutout losses in New York, the Nationals rapped out nineteen hits and scored 17 runs in a badly needed win against their rival Orioles. Danny Espinosa was the team’s heaviest hitter, going 3-4 and notching five RBIs. The Nats’ power surge also included home runs by Jayson Werth (who had two), Roger Bernadina, Laynce Nix, Wilson Ramos — and of course Espinosa. That’s six Nationals’ home runs in one game, something that Nationals fans never see.

Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter was philosophical about the loss: “I think it was probably a given they were going to hit better as the season progresses. It’s just unfortunate it was against us.” That was probably news for Nats’ fans, who have been increasingly critical of the anemic line-up and wondering when things were going to change. But Friday’s game was a sign that perhaps the Nationals have gotten on track. Jayson Werth seems to think so: “I think everybody knows we have been struggling with the bats and not getting hits,” he said in the visitor’s clubhouse following the win. “It has been a long time coming. We have a good team. Hopefully we can build on this and keep going.”

Unfortunately for Washington, starter Jason Marquis didn’t stay in the game long enough to profit from the Nats’ outburst. The Nationals’ righty, who has returned to the form he showed for the Colorado Rockies’ in 2009, was pulled by Nats’ manager Jim Riggleman after four — and was damned mad about it, showing his emotion in the dugout after he was lifted. Riggleman said he’d never seen Marquis so angry. Marquis shrugged off the incident: “I want to be out on the field, battling out there with the teammates,” he said. “It’s a one-game thing. So I’m going to go out there, do my work like I always do, prepare for the fifth day, take that ball and be ready to get a W.”

But the story of the game was the Nationals at the plate: the 17 runs were a Nationals record, and nearly every slumping player contributed: Ian Desmond was 2-6, Wilson Ramos was 3-4 and Jayson Werth brought his batting average to .247. And despite the lifting of Jason Marquis (he simply looked ineffective), the Nationals got a solid three innings performance from maybe-he-can-hit-the-strike-zone after all Henry Rodriguez.

The other piece of good news (though it’s almost, dare we say, predictable now) is the Nationals were perfect in the field. Which is pretty good commentary on the game: when the team puts it altogether, they look almost (almost) unbeatable.

The Washington Nationals rapped out a meager eight hits and fell to the Mets in rain-soaked New York, 3-0. The key to the Mets victory was the steady pitching of starter Jonathon Niese, who threw seven complete and held the Nationals scoreless. The only Nationals’ player who seemed on track was Michael Morse, who started in left field after nearly a week of seeing sparse duty. Morse was 2-4 and raised his average on the season to .258 — which marks him as one of the better batsman in the Nationals’ anemic line-up.

Nationals’ manager Jim Riggleman, who usually answers questions on the team’s hitting by saying that it’ll all work out in the end, has apparently stopped searching for an explanation. “There are no excuses,” he said in the clubhouse after the game. “We are playing defense, [we are] pitching, but we just haven’t been on track [hitting-wise]. I really don’t have an explanation for it.” Even Roger Bernadina, who started his stint with the Nationals by hitting the ball well, has now apparently been hit by the no-hit bug: his average is down to .293, a fall of 71 points over the last two weeks.

While there’s no easy explanation for the continuing drought, Adam LaRoche thinks that if he started hitting, then the rest of the team would follow: “I feel like I’m close one day and not the next,” LaRoche said. “It’s getting frustrating trying to find it. Obviously, I’ve learned how to get out of it. I wound up OK. I just haven’t figured out how to get on the right track and that’s the frustrating part. For whatever reason, I feel like if I get going, I think other guys fall in and start hitting, too.” LaRoche is hitting .177 and looks so bad at the plate that Nats’ fans are beginning to view him as an automatic out everytime he steps into the batter’s box.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Metropolitans may have finally found their second baseman, though he’s playing third for the time being. Justin Turner (above, against the Nats last night) has played just 38 games in the show in his entire career, but it appears he knows how to handle a bat. The 5-11 26-year-old graduate of baseball powerhouse Fresno State took his good sweet time in getting to the majors — kicking around such hot spots as Billings, Dayton and Chattanooga before winding up in New York. He’s an interesting story, the victim of a vicious beaning during Fresno State’s run at the College World Series back in 2006 — when the Titans were eliminated by UNC.

Turner was beaned in an attempted bunt. The ball hit him flush in the left cheekbone and he crumpled to the ground, inadvertantly planting his ankle as his body twisted. Turner ended up none the worse for wear from the beaning, but he broke his ankle. After being examined by doctors for damage to his cheek and an MRI which checked for a concussion, Turner was about to be released. “Even when I got the hospital, they did all the CT scans, MRI stuff,” Turner said. “And they were about to send me out. And I was like, ‘Dude, what about my ankle?’”

That Turner might end up as the Mets’ regular at second base shows you just how thin New York’s farm system is — and how injuries have damaged the Apples’ starting nine. Turner started at third last night because David Wright (a stress fracture in his lower back) is out for two weeks, as is Ike Davis, the regular first baseman. The injuries forced Daniel Murphy to play first and shifted Turner to third. New York’s backing and filling must be wearing thin: Angel Pagan is rehabbing from an oblique injury, and the Mets have been shuffling players between the big club and their Triple-A affiliate.

In many ways, however, the injuries could be viewed as a chance for the franchise to see younger players — and determine who will be available at the trade deadline. At least the Mets will be able to get a good assessment of whether guys like Turner can play. Still, the Mets’ outlook isn’t good. Turner is a case in point, for while he looks strong enough now, he’s not a product of the Mets’ farm system: the team got him off the waiver wire from the Orioles — who got him in a trade with Cincinnati. New York baseball writers are putting as good a face on this as they can, saying that the kids are showing just how tough they can be. We don’t buy it, and our guess is that Mets’ fans don’t either. Earlier this year, ESPN’s Keith Law ranked the Mets’ farm system 26th in Major League Baseball.

The Washington Nationals are now 1-4 and have lost three in a row. After a good start on Wednesday night in Florida (the Nats took a 4-0 lead on the solid pitching of Livan Hernandez), the Nationals fell to the Marlins, 7-4. The game was a symbol of what Washington seems to do so well: after innings of good starting pitching, the Nationals bats fell silent, the opposition was let back into the game, and the bullpen was less than stellar. Reason to panic? Not according to Nationals’ players: skipper Jim Riggleman said after the game that the clubhouse was still positive and that it was only a matter of time before the Nats break out. True enough, it’s still early — right? Right?

It’s not a secret, the hole in the Nats team is the starting pitching: the relief core is solid, the team should be able to hit. But in the early going, the bullpen has struggled — and key players bats are silent. Chad Gaudin and Todd Coffey’s ERA is soaring, and even the best arms seem tentative. Adam LaRoche, Michael Morse and Rick Ankiel are looking up at the Mendoza line, hitting .158, 118 and .133 respectively. Of course, or so the argument goes, we can expect that the Nats are going to have trouble getting on track so long as they face the Marlins, Riggleman told Mark Zuckerman. “You have to start feeling that you’ve got to put these guys away when you have an opportunity,” the manager said. “They’ve got a good group there, and they’ve had their way with us for a couple years now. There’s nothing to do but battle your way out of it and bust open a ballgame to where they can’t come back.”

I’d Rather Eat Glass Than Hear Another Word About The Phillies: While baseball is oohing and ahhing about Philadelphia’s Phab Phour, let’s try to remember that the San Francisco Giants are the champions of the world. Last night they showed why: the Giants sent the Padres packing 8-4 behind the pitching of (who else?) Tim Lincecum. Lincecum was at his best, holding the Friars to three hits in seven innings: he struck out 13. He struck out 13. So while there’s all this talk about Halliday, Lee, Oswalt, and Hamels (as, I suppose, there should be), Lincecum is still the best pitcher in baseball. Yeah, yeah, yeah — but what about Halliday? Well, what about him?

For all of the sturm and drung about the NL East, it’s still the NL Least — the NL West is the tougher division. By far. Check the facts: the NL West has supplied two World Series teams in the last five years, the Rockies and Giants, the West has provided the NL’s best pitching staffs in three of the last five years (Dodgers, Padres and Giants), and nine of the last 12 Cy Young winners have come from the NL West (that’s unbelievable, when you think about it). Sure, there’s the Phab Phour in Philly (and a tough but, let’s admit, not a great staff in Atlanta), but the NL West has a top-flight rotation in San Fran and nothing to sneeze at in Los Angeles, Colorado and San Diego. Name one Atlanta starter who’s as good as Ubaldo Jimenez. Yeah, okay: Tim Hudson and Derek Lowe are savvy, but that’s because they have to be — their fastballs are Ubaldo’s change-up.

That’s just a part of it. While anyone and their mother can pick the Phillies to win the NL East, you have to flip a coin when it comes to the West. “No more division has been more hotly contest over the past five years,” Sport Illustrated noted in its baseball preview issue. No one would be totally shocked if the Padres came close again this year — a reminder to those who thought they’d be the worst team in baseball in ’10. No division in baseball has had tighter races (since ’06 no one has won the West by more than two games), and the West has more one run games than anyone else. So . . . so, Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez and Bumgarner don’t sound like Halliday, Lee, Oswalt and Hamels, but they were good enough last year to win it all — and the Giants have Brian Wilson. And the Phillies have . . . well, they’ll let us know. The Giants are slow out of the gate, but last night’s ho-hummer in Friarland is a reminder that San Francisco remains the team to beat.