The Nationals mounted a furious rally against the visiting Florida Marlins during the ninth inning last night at Nationals Park — but it wasn’t furious enough to top the Hanleys, who snagged the Nats, 7-5. As in his previous most recent starts, Nats’ righty Livan Hernandez was inconsistent — as opposed to the normally shaky Javier Vazquez, who was able to hold down Nationals hitters through seven innings of competent, if not brilliant, work.

The Nationals’ bottom-of-the-ninth rally came on a triple from Ian Desmond, a Jerry Hairston single, an Alex Cora walk, a Ryan Zimmerman triple, a Michael Morse single — and a Laynce Nix fly ball to the warning track in right field that was just feet away from being a game-tying home run.

The Nationals have reached the dog days of the season in the doldrums: Livan Hernandez pitched only four complete innings, reliever Todd Coffey gave up three hits and a run in 1.1 innings, and Drew Storen gave up a two run home run in the ninth inning to newly arrived Marlin Mike Cameron. “The bats just woke up too late,” Nats’ manager Davey Johnson said after the loss.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Carlos Beltran is going to the Giants, in exchange for wunderkind-to-be Zach Wheeler. While everyone is talking about how Beltran is going to help the McCoveys (providing a big bat in the middle of their anemic hitting line-up), the Mets were able to get a young and formidable arm. This was a good trade for the Metropolitans.

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Jayson Werth might well have broken out of his season-long slump on Wednesday, as the frustrated right fielder, went 3-5 in accounting for two doubles and a home run (his 11th) — but the Washington Nationals lost in extra innings to the Houston Astros, 3-2 in Houston. The loss means that the Astros took the three game series, and sent the Nationals on to Los Angeles with a 2-4 road trip.

Livan Hernandez turned in a badly needed solid start, after struggling with two bad outings in his last three mound appearances. Hernandez turned in six complete innings, while giving up seven hits and only one walk. But as in previous games, the Nationals’ bats went silent when they were needed most, and the team stranded Werth on second base with the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th.

Aside from the tough loss, which came at the expense of usually reliable reliever Todd Coffey (who put the blame for the loss on his shoulders), the big news of the day was Werth. “I’ve seen really good signs for about a week,” Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson said of Werth. “He’s started to feel a little better. He was a lot more aggressive today. He hit a couple of first-pitch fastballs, which he hadn’t done. He’s probably leading the league in pitches taken. But it’s good to see him get aggressive out there.”

The Nationals have had to play through some tough one run losses, and Wednesday was another example. While Henry Rodriguez was shaky on the mound in relief of Hernandez, Tyler Clippard came in with two Astros’ runners on and nobody out and saved the day — which is becoming standard practice for the All-Star. “It’s tough in a situation like that,” Clippard said after the game. “You try to limit the damage. I made a good pitch to Barmes to make him pop out in the infield. I was able to pound the zone and put my fastball where I wanted to.”

Is Werth out of his slump? While the veteran (who raised his average to .218) wouldn’t say, it’s clear he keeps looking for ways to help the Nats win games. This afternoon presented a perfect, but missed, opportunity. “It seems like all [the one-run games] we lose, we don’t match up,” he said. “We hit when we don’t pitch and we don’t hit when we do pitch.”

The Nationals started their second half of the 2011 campaign with a loss in Atlanta, as the Braves overwhelmed the Anacostia Nine, 11-1. Tim Hudson was the star of the game, scattering seven Nationals hits through seven complete innings of work, while striking out seven and walking only one.

Livan Hernandez was Atlanta’s victim. In his second rough outing in a row, Hernandez kept leaving the ball up in the strike zone, as the Braves pummeled him for three earned runs and eight hits over just four innings of work. Reliever Ross Detwiler, who Davey Johnson hopes can be a long man out of the bullpen, was ineffective. Detwiler gave up three runs in just two innings. Todd Coffey, who relieved Detwiler, was also shakey, giving up two runs in a single inning.

“We looked like we were really rusty,” manager Davey Johnson said after the tough defeat. “There were some balls hit pretty hard. There were some tough hops. We didn’t play too good, we didn’t pitch too good. It’s just one game. Tomorrow is another day.” Michael Morse also had an unusually rough outing at first base, committing three errors. He made no excuses for the miscues following the contest.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Nationals won on pitching and defense in the first half of the season, they’ll have to do that again in the second half in order to stay at or around .500. But if they do that, and if they can start hitting, it’s possible they’ll be able to look back at the season as a tremendous improvement over 2010. But perhaps it’s time for a dose of realism . . .

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The Washington Nationals blew an 8-0 lead against the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night, rallied to tie the game at 9, and then lost on a single run — to lose the final game of the team’s set against the Chicago Little Bears, 10-9. The loss was marked by a rare implosion by starter Livan Hernandez, and the Nationals’ bullpen. Hernandez was effective until the 6th, when the Cubs put on a six run push to bring the North Siders to within two. The wind-out-of-the-sails moment  came in that inning when pinch hitter Blake DeWitt put a Hernandez offering off the foul pole in right field.

Even after the DeWitt homer, the Nationals had a chance to win: but reliever Sean Burnett could not hold the surging Cubbies. With Aramis Ramirez on base, Cubs’ first sacker Carlos Pena homered, tying the game at eight. The Cubs scored again, were matched by the Nationals — and then put the game away in the top of the 9th when Darwin Barney doubled, bringing home Tony Campana.

The Thursday loss was particularly disappointing for Nationals’ fans, who have been waiting for the team’s breakout game in a season of close one-run victories. Roger Bernadina (3-6), Danny Espinosa (2-5) Michael Morse (2-5) and Wilson Ramos (1-4) all had big nights at the plate, with Espinosa, Morse and Ramos each contributing two RBIs in the loss. Nats’ manager Davey Johnson blamed himself for the loss, saying that he stuck with Livan Hernandez for too long in the sixth. “I’m going to have a hard time sleeping tonight on that one,” he told reporters following the game.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Nationals’ fans can be justly proud of their young and tough up-the-middle combination of Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa, but Chicago’s shortstop-second base combo might be just as good (or better). While everyone focuses on the wizardry of Cubs’ phenom Starlin Castro, second sacker Darwin Barney is turning into the best second baseman the Cubs have had since the days of Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg. Then too, (in case you haven’t noticed) Barney is emerging as the N.L.’s “other” rookie second sacker — along with Danny Espinosa.

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Jayson Werth’s wily steal of third in the 10th inning on Monday — and his subsequent trot home on a Carlos Marmol wild pitch — gave the Nationals a nail-biting 5-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs. And for the first time in a long time the veteran Werth heard cheers from the hometown fans.

“Cheer me, boo me, whatever,” Werth said following the daring win. “I’m still going to go out there and play my game.” That may be, but Werth would undoubtedly prefer to hear cheers than catcalls — which were increasing in intensity over the last several games at the ballpark.

For a time it looked as if the up-and-down Independence Day game would go against the Nationals, as they entered the 7th inning one down to the otherwise listless Cubs. But a host of Cubs’ relievers, including the usually steady Kerry Wood, found a way to walk in a run and tie the game.

Drew Storen and Henry Rodriguez kept the Nationals even until Werth’s heroics in the 10th. Werth led off the inning with a savvy walk, then was sacrificed to second by pinch-hitter Livan Hernandez. The Cubs brought in Marmol, their usually lights-out closer. But Marmol appeared unprepared for this sudden bullpen call, and Werth stole third.

The unexpected play sparked Nationals fans — and rattled Marmol, who bounced one in the dirt in front of a scrambling Geovany Soto, as Werth trotted home. Werth admitted that his theft of third was a gamble. “I just felt like it was time to make something happen. It’s a funny game. You steal third and score the winning run. If he inside-moved me (for a pickoff attempt) right there, I’m probably the goat.”

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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The Washington Nationals won yet another one run game, defeating the White Sox in Chicago by a score of 2-1. While the Nationals were able to scratch out only three hits against the Chicago starting staff and bullpen, it proved to be enough to make Livan Hernandez (now 5-8) a winner. He deserved it: the big righty threw 6.2 innings, scattering seven hits and striking out nine.

Washington scored its runs on Danny Espinosa’s 7th inning home run with Michael Morse aboard, giving the Nationals just enough to edge the Pale Hose. Espinosa’s average has been climbing steadily over the last ten games. Chicago’s fans had to be disappointed: Philip Humber threw brilliantly, matching Hernandez pitch-for-pitch and holding the Nationals scoreless through six. Humber held the Nationals to just three hits while striking out four and had a no-hitter through five.

The three game series must have provided a sobering moment for the White Sox whose biggest boppers have not-so-suddenly turned into hitless wonders. The boo-birds were out for Adam Dunn, the off-season mega-bucks free agent (and former National) who’s hitting .019 from the left side of the plate. Dunn is hitting .176 on the season. His four strikeouts today against the Nationals gave him 100 strikeouts for the year. His blood-draining power production (or lack of it) has turned much of the south side against him: he has 40 hits, only seven of which are home runs.

Hernandez was brilliant, but so was the Nationals’ bullpen. Washington’s trio of relievers — Tyler Clippard, Sean Burnett and Drew Storen — held off the Chisox through the 7th, 8th, and 9th, with Clippard and Burnett notching holds, and Storen registering his 19th save. Burnett looked particularly effective, good news for the young lefty who struggled in the early part of June. Burnett has given up no runs and just two hits in his last seven outings. Burnett has lowered his ERA a full point over the last three weeks. The Nationals now head to Los Angeles, where they will duel with the Belinskys.