We rarely feature guest comments, but in this case we couldn’t help ourselves. And it’s about time. We haven’t had guest commentary for the last year, since one of our readers spouted off about that other Washington professional team. But we received this from our loyal reader — Mike — who has bobbed to the surface (so to speak) long enough to tell us how fed up he is with “the neighborhood play.”

Enough is enough! Baseball has to either play by the rules, or change the rule book. I have long been opposed to the “neighborhood” play at second base – and for good reason. Having played second base for most of my (admittedly) pathetic Little League, Babe Ruth, American Legion and old guy softball career I never got the advantage of not playing by the rules. You either tag the base on a force out or you tag the runner. Either way: but you don’t catch the ball six feet off the bag throw to first and call it a double play. Because it’s not.

A good definition of what is now called the neighborhood play is on Wikipedia (alright, it’s Wikipedia, but it’s still good): “In baseball, a neighborhood play is a force play where a fielder receiving the ball in attempting to force out a runner at second base, catches and quickly throws the ball to first base in a double play without actually touching second base, or by touching second base well before catching the ball. By every rules code, such a play is not an out, because to record a force out, the fielder with the ball must actually touch a force base before the forced runner arrives (pro Rule 7.08(e)). In professional baseball, the umpires frequently call the play as an out, disregarding the strict application of the rule in favor of traditional practice.”

So, here tis: on a double play attempt, the fielder must throw the ball to first base, which will require a step directly into the path of the incoming runner. On a close force out at second, the fielder often cannot avoid a collision while attempting to complete a throw to first base. The neighborhood non-rule allows the fielder to stay away from second base. The traditional application of the neighborhood play developed because it is common for a sliding runner to go to the bag feet or head first to make the completion of the double play more difficult.

This offensive (or perhaps inoffensive) play often results in a collision with the fielder at second base, sometimes causing injury, or in modern baseball speak, damage to a “valued asset.” And we wouldn’t want that. Ty Cobb, he of the sharpened spikes, was a master of execution of this maneuver.

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Jordan Zimmermann notched a complete game against the Angels on Wednesday night, but the young righthander’s brilliance wasn’t enough. The Halos were able to beat Zimmermann and the Nationals, 1-0, in a classic (God, this game went fast) pitchers’ duel. The Nationals were simply unable to solve Los Angeles righty Dan Haren, who pitched 7.1 innings of two hit baseball. Haren took the win, Zimmermann took the loss.

The Nationals finished out what had promised to be a successful road trip by being swept in Anaheim. The Nationals were outscored in the series, 16-8. The loss on Wednesday dropped the team to a single game under .500. “I ran into a pretty good pitcher today,” Zimmermann said after the loss. “He had our hitters off balance all day. It was a battle for both teams to score some runs.”

Once again, the Nationals’ bats have gone silent. Haren and two Angels’ relievers held the Anacostia Nine to three hits on the afternoon — with Haren throwing 120 pitches, 77 of them for strikes. Haren’s high pitch count was a sign of Nationals’ patience at the plate, as Anaheim’s righty went to multiple 3-2 counts. But Haren was always able to make a good pitch when he had to. In truth, Zimmermann was much sharper, but without the run support that didn’t matter. The Nationals return home to face the Pirates and then, for the July 4 holiday, the visiting (and semi-revived) Chicago Cubs.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Red Sox are struggling against National League teams. They play a rubber game in Philadelphia today against the Phillies, but have dropped two series in a row against teams in the senior circuit. They recently lost two of three to the Padres, and then two of three to the Pirates. They were dumped 5-0 on Tuesday at the hands of Cliff Lee, and then 2-1 last night when Raul Ibanez went deep on John Lackey . . .

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A dramatic two out home run from Danny Espinosa tied the game in the bottom of the 9th inning in Anaheim on Monday night — but it wasn’t enough to keep the Nationals from dropping their series-opener to the Angels, 4-3. Once again, the Nationals had a hard time getting hits when they needed them, as Los Angeles starter Ervin Santana corralled the Nats’ lineup through eight innings. The loss was the first by new Nats’ manager Davey Johnson, who took over the reins of the team after the just-completed White Sox series.

Starter John Lannan did not have his best stuff on Monday night, but he kept the Nationals close, throwing 5.2 innings before giving way to reliever Ryan Mattheus. Lannan gave up 11 hits, but that only accounted for three earned runs. The Nationals, meanwhile, were ineffective at the plate, where they scored most of their runs by using the long ball: Michael Morse homered in the second, Ryan Zimmerman homered in the fourth and Espinosa homered in the ninth.

All of the dingers came without runners on base, so that by the 9th the Nationals were trailing 3-2. Espinosa’s homer, a ball down in the zone that he crushed into far right field, tied the game. It was his fifteenth of the year and came off of Angels’ reliever Jordan Walden, who gave up his third blown save in a row. Espinosa’s homer is the most for a rookie second baseman before the All Star break.

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The Nationals head into Anaheim with a better record than the Belinskys. Which shows you just how disappointing the Halos season has been. The Angels are one game under .500, but they’re struggling. And for good reason. They rank 11th in the American League in runs, 10th in homers, and tenth in OBP. Of course, as Angels fans will tell you, they’ve been getting a lot better lately, taking successive series from the Dodgers, Marlins, Mets and Mariners. But it wasn’t always this way.

A deflating early June fold against the Rays in Tampa (in which they were outscored, 13-5), followed by a disheartening showing against the Royals (in which they were trounced in Anaheim in the last game, 9-0), suggests that the Angels are no longer one of the A.L.’s elite — a comeuppance equal to their 2010 finish, in which they ended the season looking up at the both the White Elephants and once-lowly Rangers. That put them ten games back and an embarrassing two games under .500.

So what’s happened to the Angels? Well, while they’ve gotten younger (their roster is actually younger, on average, than the Nationals), their marquee players (Torii Hunter and Bobby Abreu) are reaching the end of the line. Hunter is 35 and Abreu is 37. Abreu is hitting well, at .285, but he’s long past the time when he could win a game with a towering blast: he has three home runs this season. Hunter, who in some ways has come to define the Angels, is still a formidable force (with 24 dingers last year, and eight so far this year), but his aches and pains (and just average BA) might be a sign of things to come. He’s nursing strained ribs and will not be in the Angels’ line-up tonight.

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The Washington Nationals dipped below .500, dropping a rain rescheduled game to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-2 on Monday night. The Nats, still struggling at the plate, could not solve Ahoy lefty Paul Maholm, who threw seven innings of four hit baseball. “Maholm shut us down,” Nats’ skipper Jim Riggleman said after the game. “We hit a couple balls decent that they made some plays on. We really couldn’t elevate too many balls on him and get anything in the air to carry out in the gap or go over the fence.” Maholm, who has struggled in the early going, notched his first win.

Once again, the Nationals (who were much more worried about their starting pitching at the beginning of the year), were outhit — 6 to 5, with several Nationals (mostly the veteran off-the-bench players) mired in deep slumps. The Nats have been outhit in eight of the last ten games and remain 15th in N.L. team batting average and dead last in hits. The Nationals will open up against the Mets tonight in a three game set, before facing the world champion San Francisco Giants this weekend.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: If you didn’t see Jered Weaver’s complete game shutout of the Oakland A’s last night from Anaheim, you missed a gem. Weaver dominated the A’s, registering his sixth straight win, the most by any major league pitcher before April 25. Every year has it surprises, and this is one of them: Weaver is the best pitcher in the game. Weaver leads the major leagues in wins, ERA and strikeouts, after being 13-12 with an MLB leading 233 strike outs last year . . .

There were less than ideal conditions for playing baseball in Chicago last night — not only was it 43 degrees and wet (miserable, actually), but the North Side Drama Queens were on the field facing the we-can-do-no-wrong Heltons. The Rockies won, 5-3 — but in looking at the box score you have to wonder why. The Cubs rapped out 11 hits, but scored only 3, while the Rockies were held to four hits, and scored five. Kosuke Fukudome went 5-5 and raised his out-of-the-gates average to .478. Down behind the Cubs dugout, fans were razzing him: “Where the hell have you been?”

So why did the Cubs lose? Well, let’s see: the long ball was nowhere to be found (rookie Darwin Barney had a single dinger), Chicago’s heavy hitters (Alfonso Soriano, Giovany Soto and Carlos Pena) were of-fer ten and, oh yeah . . . shortstop wunderkind Starlin Castro committed three errors. The grass was slick, the announcers said. The weather was cold, the announcers said. Well, okay. But the grass was as slick and the weather as cold for Troy Tulowitzki, who was as smooth as silk on the other side of the diamond. “If you’re going to get beat, you at least would not like to gift wrap the damned thing for the opposition,” Cubs manager Mike Quade said after the game.

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.

We couldn’t have an off-season without a blockbuster — and the Angels have accommodated us. In a swap of a contract for talent, the Belinskys sent underrated outfielder Juan Rivera and rock solid first sacker Mike Napoli to that-place-north-of-the-border for outfielder Vernon Wells. Angels fans have to be happy. After wiffing on the likes of Jayson Werth, Adrian Beltre and Carl Crawford the Halo’s front office has finally come through, providing the team with what MLB Trade Rumors calls “a dream outfield.” There’s only one problem: Wells arrives in Anaheim with a mega-contract that had all of baseball atwitter back in 2006 — when Wells was re-upped for $126 million over seven years. The Angels give up two solid regulars for the honor of shifting Torii Hunter to right, slotting Bobby Abreu as the team’s DH and gambling that can’t miss youngster Peter Bourjos can’t miss.

While baseball focuses on what this does for Los Angeles, Toronto’s trade for Rivera and Napoli not only gets the Jays out from under a suffocating contract, it adds two pretty good bats to an already homer-heavy line-up. Toronto might not be able to compete with New York and Boston in the A.L. East, but they’re a powerhouse — and with a little more pitching they might surprise. The Blue Jays now have Juan Rivera (15 home runs last year, ten more the year before) in the middle of their line-up, to go along with recently acquired Rajai Davis (50 stolen bases last year) and big bat (54 home runs in 2010) Jose Bautista. And Mike Napoli is nothing to sneeze at — he hit for power last year (a surprising 26 home runs) and he’s a solid presence behind the plate. Rivera and Napoli could easily combine for 40 homers to go along with their solid OBPs. What’s not to like?

So . . . Angels fans are happy. Right? Well, not exactly. Halos Heaven slams the deal: “This trade doesn’t even deserve the dignity of a formal analysis. The Angels voluntarily vacated about three or four wins next season while simultaneously boosting their payroll by nearly $10 million.” Angels Win disagrees, saying that the deal “improves the defense, improves the offense, and will result in more wins.” Well, maybe. But even AW is forced to admit that picking up the Wells’ salary could cause problems: “Subtracting the $11 million that the Blue Jays will pay Napoli and Rivera in 2011 from the $89 million owed to Wells, the deal amounts to a $78 million/4 year deal—or about $19.5 million/year.” That’s a lot of money, or — as Halo Heaven says, bringing in Wells is like releasing Napoli and signing Rivera to an $86 million extension. “They’re popping corks and smoking Cubans in Toronto tonight,” HH says. “Alex Anthopoulos [the Toronto GM] has done the impossible.”