The player for whom Tommy John surgery is named was one of the smartest and tenacious pitchers to ever throw from a major league mound. Check the record: John pitched for 26 years, compiling a 288-231 record with a career 3.34 ERA and 162 complete games. He threw well (he led his league twice in winning percentage and three times in shutouts) and often brilliantly for four good teams: the White Sox, Dodgers, Angels and Yankees. It’s a shame, truly, that Tommy John is remembered best for the surgery that was performed, first, on him — after he “blew out his arm.” For while we credit medicine with inventing “Tommy John Surgery,” the procedure that repaired his arm was really his idea and was performed at his insistence by Dr. Frank Jobe. That fact is important, because most (and damn near all) pitchers before Tommy John who suffered from “forearm stiffness” or “a dead arm” (the names then given to symptoms that pointed to elbow ligament damage) simply left the game. Tommy John didn’t.

Baseball commentators (Peter Gammons, Steve Kurkjian and others), sports talk junkies (ESPN  980′s Tom Loverro and Rick “Doc” Walker) and Nationals’ fanatics (me and you and God knows who else) seem to have come to three conclusions about the news that Stephen Strasburg will have to undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery. The first is that the Strasburg injury is “devastating” and potentially career ending, that the injury derails Nationals’ plans to contend in 2011 (or even 2012), and that the news reflects the fragility of modern pitchers — whose susceptibility to blowing out their pitching arm shows they aren’t as tough as “old school pitchers.” All three conclusions are false. And here’s why.

Okay, okay: the Strasburg news is “devastating” for Strasburg because it will keep him off the mound for 12 to 15 months; but the news is not fatal either to his career or to the long-term prospects of the Washington franchise. Others have had the surgery, many others, and have come back as good as new — or better. After having “Tommy John surgery,” Tommy John went on to win 164 games. A.J. Burnett, Chris Carpenter, Tim Hudson, Arthur Rhodes, Carl Pavano and Billy Wagner have all had the procedure and have come back — in some cases they actually pitched better after the surgery than before. Tommy John surgery does not simply repair a damaged ligament, it replaces it. The goal of the procedure is to make the arm stronger than it was before the surgery. And isn’t it an irony (or, if you prefer, isn’t it nauseating) that the Nationals got the news on Strasburg on the same day that Jordan Zimmermann returned to the mound 12 months after having his own Tommy John procedure — and was able to throw well and without pain.

Is the news “devastating” for the Nats? It would be crazy to argue that the Strasburg news will have no impact on the club. It will. There’s little doubt that the 2011 rotation will suffer without his presence. But to believe that Stan Kasten or Mike Rizzo (or Jim Riggleman), have stated that they are “stockpiling pitchers” because they just happen to love pitchers is perverse. They know. They know that a certain percentage of pitchers will blow a ligament, tear a cuff or strain an elbow — and somebody will have to come in to take their place. The Nats have plenty of young pitchers who want to be in the show, and while none of them have the talent of the phenom, the team is not without hope. Then too, the era of free agency ensures that, should a team lose its best talent to the D.L, it’s possible to sign a savvy and healthy veteran (like, well . . . Tommy John) who can revive a franchise’s fortune. In 1974, while Tommy John was rehabbing from the first-ever Tommy John surgery, the Dodgers finished in second place in the N.L West. But two years later (in 1977) the Dodgers won the pennant — because of Tommy John, who had his best year ever (20-7, 220 innings, 2.78 ERA). Tommy John’s injury was “devastating” for Tommy John, but not for the Dodgers — who did just fine without him. They did what all ball clubs do: they compensated.

Is the kind of injury that sidelined Tommy John — and that is now sidelining Stephen Strasburg — a new development? Does it somehow signal some kind of systemic problem with developing major league pitchers? Weren’t pitchers just “tougher” in past years, and aren’t “these kids” being coddled just a bit too much? This is complete nonsense. The reason that Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal (the two examples most prominently cited, because of the Spahn-Marichal marathon) were able to pitch as effectively as they did for as long as they did is not because they “sucked it up,” but because they never suffered career ending ligament damage. If they had (in the era before Tommy John surgery) their careers would have been over. They weren’t tough, they didn’t “suck it up” — they were lucky. High school baseball, football and basketball squads of the 1960s were littered with coaches whose damaged arms ended their careers. They didn’t refuse to tough it out: they were out of baseball because their arm was “dead.” The difference between then and now is not a difference in “character,” it’s that now we have Tommy John surgery — back then we didn’t.

The news on Strasburg is bad news. It’s very bad news. But Tommy John surgery is not a death sentence. Not even close. It’s an injury — and it will take time to heal. There will be months and months of rest, even before rehab. “The kid” is in for a long journey. But my bet is that he’ll return. Wouldn’t be nice for him to know that when he does — we’ll be there, cheering him on. It’s not time for Stephen Strasburg to suck it up, it’s time for Nats fans to suck it up.

The season may have ended yesterday for two storied franchises. The Red Sox and the Dodgers both blew late-in-the-game leads (the Sox to the Blue Jays, the Dodgers to the Phillies) and lost on the road as they attempted to chase down a wild card slot in their respective divisions. The Nation, who are four games back in the Wild Card race, look to be in better shape than the Trolleys — who trail in the N.L West by six-and-a- half. But the similarity between the two teams, and the reason they both may be done, is their fate-crossed closers. Jonathan Broxton of the Dodgers and Jonathan Papelbon of the Sox sport very similar lines, and they’re not pretty.  Both closers have four losses, both have ERAs over 3.0, and both have blown an inordinate number of saves (Papelbon has blown six; Broxton has blown five). And both closers also took the loss yesterday.

The Dodger implosion was the more bloody of the two, with the Torre squad blowing a seven run lead with six outs to go. The only reason I continued to watch the game into the late innings was that I don’t like the Phils –while I’ve got an unexplained affection for the Dodgers. Basically, I wanted to see the Ponies getting drubbed. But, I’d forgotten about the Dodger bullpen (though that’s not hard to do if you don’t have one). Torre looked absolutely gray in the last two innings (especially in the ninth), when Broxton hit the first batter and then walked the second. Torre trudged to the hill to tell his man to “trust [his] stuff.”  Actually, he said it twice (you could read his lips). Broxton promptly walked the next batter, and then it was only a matter of time.

The Sox weren’t much better: they led the Blue Jays 5-2 going into the final frame, but they couldn’t hold it. Starter John Lackey started off the ninth and gave up a solo dinger; he was pulled. That said, Lackey had pitched effectively, scattering seven hits over eight innings with only one walk. Then Papelbon came on: and the wheels fell off. In one-third of an inning Papelbon gave up four hits and walked one. Fireballer Daniel Bard then entered the fray, but it was too late. While Bard got his man to fly out to center by then the game had been tied and the winning run had tagged from third to score.

The Dodgers are certainly done. Broxton looks absolutely lost on the mound. It’s not clear how, in the wake of the Broxton disaster, the Trolleys can rebound from “the Philadelphia Massacre.” And the Sox? Well, we’ll see . . . but it doesn’t look good. And it’s because of their closer. Effective closers don’t blow six save opportunities and keep their team in contention. It’ll be a mammoth test of the Sox stick-to-it-iveness to continue the march to the Wild Card.  They’ve certainly showed their mettle thus far, particularly given the almost unbelievable number of key players they’ve had on the DL this season. But with Kevin Youkilis gone for the year with a thumb injury its just not certain they can come back from their collapse in Toronto.

The Nats were reportedly displeased with their play over their last two days in Miami (“We’re definitely upset,” Willie Harris admitted. “We’re not like in the past, where you might think it’s just another ballgame. It’s different), but the truth is that, while the Nats could have played much better, they lost to two tough pitchers and a team of suddenly surging long ball hitters. It’s sometimes just this simple: the other team plays better and the guys they put on the mound are in command of their stuff. So it was on Saturday, when Chris Volstad’s knuckle curve subdued the Nats order, stifling a confident team in a visitor’s park. Which is simply to say: the Nats ran into a team that boasts pitchers who know how to throw complete games. The Marlins are tied with the Phillies for most complete games — having turned in complete performances from Volstad (who held the Nats to just four hits) Ricky Nolasco (beaten by Scott Olsen on Friday) and Josh Johnson — who was in complete command on Sunday.

Which is not to say that the Nats played (or pitched) well — they didn’t. Craig Stammen remained inconsistent through four innings on Saturday, pulled early by Riggleman when it was clear that he simply didn’t have his stuff. After two good outings, Stammen seemed to slip back to his old ways: serving up batting practice fastballs to a group of hitters who knew exactly what to do with them. John Lannan endured the same kind of outing on Sunday, though this time the Nats looked a little less like the defensive bumblers of ’09. Pitching was still the problem — Lannan gave up nine hits through five shaky innings and the bullpen wasn’t much better, with Brian Bruney as ineffective behind Lannan as Tyler Walker had been behind Stammen. Bruney was puzzled by his continued struggles: “Really, honestly, I don’t know what to tell you,” he said following the Marlins Sunday win. “I think you can just jumble everything together and say it’s frustrating.”

Chris Volstad is an imposing presence on the mound (6-8, 225), with a pitcher-heavy fastball and a smooth delivery. But his best pitch is a “knuckle curve” — what some players call a “spike curve.” Oddly, it (and not the fastball) is Volstad’s out pitch (or at least it was on Saturday) and when he throws it well (as he did against the Nats), he’s damn near unhittable. The knuckle curve features a semi-curve ball grip with one or two fingers curled back. To be effective, the ball is launched or pushed towards the plate instead of thrown. The master of the knuckle curve was Burt Hooton, a Texas phenom who pitched fifteen years for the Cubs, Dodgers and Astros. Hooton was the “next big thing” when he arrived in Chicago in 1971 — one of the few MLB players to vault from college directly into a team’s starting line-up.

For a time in Chicago, Hooton looked like the real deal. He struck out 15 in one of his earliest appearances in 1971 and in his first outing in ’72 he threw a breathtaking no-hitter against the Phillies. But Hooton struggled with the Cubs the rest of the way and was dealt to L.A. in 1975. Hooton was 19-8 for the Trolleys in 1978, his best year. In 1981, Hooton was named the NLCS MVP for his stellar pitching performances against the Expos and went on to pitch well against the Yankees in the ’81 World Series. But while Hooton was the master of the knuckle curve, he was never the master of the strike zone — and never equaled in his later career the lights-out promise of his 1972 no-hitter. Hooton has served as a pitching coach in the Astro’s organization since his retirement and, in 2009, was inducted into the University of Texas Hall of Fame, along with Astro’s slugger Lance Berkman.

The Washington Nationals came within inches of pulling out a victory against the Dodgers on Saturday, but a quick throw to home by L.A. third baseman Casey Blake on a slow roller by Ian Desmond caught Ivan Rodriguez at the plate in the bottom of the 13th inning — and the Trolley’s went on to win a 4-3 13 inning squeaker at Nationals Park. The play-at-the-plate call brought boos from Nats fans, but after the game Rodriguez said he believed the umpire made the right decision: “I went in and saw the replay and I was out probably two or three inches. He made a good call,” Rodriguez said. The Nats had plenty of opportunities to win the game, but left 15 men on base against L.A. starter Clayton Kershaw and a host of Dodger relievers. “I thought we played real good baseball,” Nats’ manager Jim Riggleman said in the clubhouse after the game. “We got some timely hits. Pitching was good. It was a pitching and defense game. I wish we could have gotten the runs in. It just didn’t happen.”

The itchy-close contest included another stellar outing from Washington starter Craig Stammen and a 3 for 7 day from fleet-footed speedster Nyjer Morgan — whose controversial sixth inning decision to try for third on a ball hit over the head of left fielder Xavier Paul was the talk of the post game commentators. After the game, Morgan admitted he had made a base running mistake. “I was being aggressive, but not intelligent,” Morgan said. “But my thought was they were trying to [throw out] Stammen. I should have stopped about halfway, but I was locked in. I had tunnel vision there and didn’t understand the situation a little bit. I have to be smarter in that situation. It was an aggressive play. I was thinking they would throw out the pitcher instead of trying to get me at third. I should have known better not to make the last out at third base.”

Backed by two homers from Adam Dunn, right handed rookie starter Luis Atilano subdued the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, 5-1. It was Atilano’s first start. The rookie threw an effective mix of fastballs, curves and change-ups in notching his first major league victory — earning the praise of both Dodger skipper Joe Torre and Nats’ manager Jim Riggleman. “The youngster really did a good job of throwing strikes and changing speeds,” Torre said. “We had some scouting reports on him and some video, but the fact that he had so many strikes early in the count enabled him to do what he did, which was very impressive. He did a great job.”

While Dunn passed off reporters who questioned whether his 2-3 showing ended his slump, the slugger seemed more comfortable at the plate than he has since the beginning of the season: “It’s just a first game. But it felt good,” Dunn said. “Again, I’ve been feeling good all along. I just haven’t been doing much. Two thoughts went through my head. On the first home run, I went up there, I was going to basically jam myself and stay inside of [the ball]. The other one was to revert back to slow-pitch softball, minus the beer coolers in the dugout.” Dunn’s game vaulted his BA above .200 for the year and eased fears that his slump might be more permanent. His first home run of the night (in the fourth inning) was prodigious — it landed in the upper deck in right field.

Are The Nationals “For Real?” It’s a good question — at least for baseball commentators and “power ranking” gurus. From “Baseball Tonight” to the MLB Network, the Nats are getting a lot of ink. The Nats 9-8 record is nothing to brag about, unless you’re a team with 103 losses in 2009. But the baseball press is taking the Nats seriously, in spite of injuries to Jason Marquis, Ryan Zimmerman’s nasty and nagging hamstring and Adam Dunn’s power outage. Tim Kurkjian (not surprisingly) predicted the Nats’ break out, calling the Nats the “most transformed team in the National League” at the beginning of the season. Baseball’s “power rankings” reflect this new reality: the Nats are listed at 24 (ahead of the White Sox and Mets) by ESPN, but 18th by Fox Sports (ahead of the Red Sox!).

There are some simple truths here: the Nats are better than last year, are better than the Astos, Diamondbacks, Orioles and Royals and deserve credit for their strong and early start. But it’s hard to believe that a staff of Lannan, Stammen, Olsen and Hernandez can out-pitch a staff anchored by the likes of Lester and Beckett. Nats fans know that “power rankings” go out the window once Rizzo and Company have to rely on rookie pitchers to provide stop-gap wins. But the glass is half full: if Chien-Ming Wang can return healthy when he’s supposed to, if Jason Marquis can come back quickly and if Stephan Strasburg is all everyone says he is (and he is), then come June all bets are off. For the first time in five years, the team is tough defensively and has a strong bullpen. It might be hard for some to swallow (like Mets fans for instance, or that team up the road) , but Nats fans don’t need the power rankings to tell you — this team is for real.

Now that the Phuzzies have become the former world champions — dropping the World Series to New York’s Jedi Knights – we can return to baseball’s second season: as ultimate a test for GMs and owners as the on-the-field play of their counterparts during the regular season. So it is that the Nats’ off season rumor mill is finally in full swing, with reports circulating that the Nats are once again eyeing second sacker Orlando Hudson as the solution to the team’s problems in the middle infield. Jon Heyman over at SI says that Hudson is looking for other opportunities — as Trolley manager Joe Torre ”employed Ronnie Belliard over him” through much of September and into the playoffs. In fact, it was downright weird watching Belliard shine in the L.A. post-season, particularly considering his embarrassing swing-from-the-heels style of play for the Nats through nearly 120 games. Can it be? Would L.A. really pick Belliard as their second sacker over Hudson?

Ah . . . well, not really. L.A. is all a-glitter over the prospect of signing free agent Adrian Beltre to play third base, with Casey Blake moving over to second — an experiment that keeps Blake’s bat in the line-up while adding a power hitter at the corner. Beltre could, in fact, pump about 20 dingers into the left field seats in Dodger Stadium, giving the kind of power to the Trolley line-up that Raul Ibanez provided in Philadelphia this last year. And L.A.’s his home town. That puts Belliard on the Dodger bench (which is where he, ah, belongs): and makes Hudson expendable. There’s no doubt there’s been an on-again off-again flirtation between the Nats and Hudson which dates back to late 2008 — when the Nats seemingly pursued the glove man, hoping he could fill the infield hole next to Cristian Guzman. In any event, the Hudson-to-the-Nats never quite happened and the “O-Dog” ended up in Hollywood. Now, it seems, there is revived interest in Hudson: the flirtation continues.

But is Hudson the right fit for D.C.?

Right here (in this paragraph), we might take a look at Hudson’s stats, which are more than presentable (.283, 9 HRs, 62 RBIs — and, more importantly, a good glove), and then follow that with talk about how Hudson would add some badly needed punch to an anemic middle infield. But all of that would beg the question: the problem up the middle for the Nats is not at second base, it’s at shortstop — and bringing Hudson in not only doesn’t solve that problem, it short-circuits the end-of-season discussion about moving Cristian Guzman to second and finding someone (like Ian Desmond) to play Guzman’s position. I’ve argued before that moving Guzman to second doesn’t solve anything. And it doesn’t. In fact, signing Hudson only creates an additional problem: for if Guzman can’t play second any better than he played short and if Ian Desmond doesn’t work out (and he might not) then you don’t have one problem, you have two.

Even so, the “we want Orlando” bandwagon is entering its first stage, in large part because no one is sold on Alberto Gonzalez — including outspoken MASN announcers Bob Carpenter and Rob Dibble and regular Nats commentator Bill Ladson. Ladson pegs Gonzalez as no more than a sometimes substitute. “I think it’s pretty clear that he is no more than a backup,” Ladson said in a recent column. “I was shocked with the way he played after interim manager Jim Riggleman made him the everyday second baseman. There were times I thought he wasn’t fundamentally sound with the bat and glove.” Really? Gonzalez hit .265 in 105 games, and while he wasn’t exactly a whiz kid at second, he wasn’t a disaster. While Gonzalez ended the season with an admittedly paltry OBP of .299, he finished the season strong, hitting .344 in his last ten games. Gonzalez is young, has a good attitude and he’ll only get better. In fact, he might get a lot better.  

Hudson, on the other hand, will make somewhere in the range of $5 million to $7 million per year (and he’s not about to sign a single year contract) and his rumored wrist problem is worrisome. He will be 32, on the down side of his prime years. Gonzalez will only get better: Hudson can only get worse. Why spend $5-$7 million a year (over three years, I’ll bet you) for a guy who might have a problem staying in the line-up. Of course, Hudson hits a hellava lot better than Gonzalez (no question) and has a stellar glove (he’s one of the best fielding second sacker in the majors), but he’s iffy in a way that Felipe Lopez was iffy. Then too (we might remember) Joe Torre thought that, when the chips were down, Ronnie Belliard was the better player. That oughta tell us something. So what should the Nats do? At least one of the options they should consider would be to take the money they would save on signing the “O-Dog” — let’s call it “Hudson Money” — and spend it on buying a solid front rank free agent pitcher. It comes down to this: who would you rather have? Orlando Hudson — or Jon Garland? Or Joel Pineiro? Or even Jason Marquis?

Tommy Lasorda is a ubiquitous presence in baseball and a legend in Los Angeles. The camera finds him in Dodger Stadium during nearly every game of the week, he’s constantly interviewed, and his baseball judgment is considered nigh on saintly: Tim McCarver mentions his name in a worshipful (almost liturgical) tone (“there’s Tommy”) and reporters scribble furiously when he talks, which he does — a lot. He’s even supplanted the late Walter O’Malley as “Mr. Dodger,” certainly he’s more worshipfully remembered than Walter Alston, whose managing career matches Lasorda’s. When Lasorda retired as the Dodger’s manager, back in 1996, he spent untold hours sidling up to Hollywood legends and walk-of-fame wannabes, hobnobbing with producers and starlets, and befriending crooner Frank Sinatra. Tommy’s done everything but the perp walk, but you never know.

But despite what Trolley fans might think, Lasorda’s not perfect. In 1993, he questioned whether then-Dodger prospect Pedro Martinez (5-11) was big enough to be a good pitcher, prompting the Dodger’s front office (which spent their time back then listening for the whip-crack in his raspy voice), to trade him to Montreal in exchange for second sacker Delino DeShields. Martinez rewarded Lasorda’s skepticism the next year: he pitched nine innings of perfect baseball for Montreal, compiling a 17-8 record. And he went on to become one of the best pitchers in baseball. Anyone can make a mistake, but apparently Pedro holds a grudge, not least because the endlessly yakky Lasorda was so outspoken in his criticism of his diminutive pitcher. It’s one thing to say a guy is “too small” to the front office, it’s another to say it in pubic. Then too, Pedro is not the kind of guy who’s known for steering away from controversy – and neither is Lasorda.

Back in 2005, Lasorda picked a fight with the Phillie Phanatic on his blog after the Phanatic took a Lasorda jersey, put it on a dummy, and ran over it again and again before a Dodgers-Phillies game. “This should not be shown in ballparks, especially in front of children,” Lasorda complained. “It exhibits disrespect and violence.” The next time the Dodgers were in town, Mr. Thin Skin (during a clubhouse lecture he gave on compassion, he told a player who interrupted him to ”shut the f … up!”) body-slammed the Phanatic to the ground. And bragged about it. Say what you will about Martinez’s defense in fending off Don Zimmer: at least he didn’t attack a mascot.

The Martinez-Trolley feud would be enough to make tonight’s Trolley-Phuzzie match-up worth watching, but it’s not the only story of this series. Head hunter Vicente Padilla is scheduled to start for the Dodgers against his old team, who traded him to the Texas Rangers for a player to be named later — a “here, we don’t want him” swap that ruffled Padilla’s feathers and got under his very thin skin. Padilla was not well-liked in The City Of Brotherly Love, whose fans mercilessly dogged him about his wildness and mound antics and remained silent when he was traded. That wasn’t true for other Phillies: Randy Wolf (also now a Dodger) had a thick-as-syrup “Wolf Pack” following that howled when he appeared, while Jim Thome’s apologists were so vocal, so slathering, it was almost embarrassing. Padilla went on to become a felon in Texas, but has apparently cleaned up his act in L.A., where his teammates testify that he’s the brother of Mary Poppins. Of course he is: pitchers actually have to enter the batter’s box in the National League (where the game is played among men) — which means any Padilla fastball aimed at an opposing player’s ear is likely to result in his being carted from the field. Right past Lasorda’s box.

The silence you hear tonight when the Philllies take the field in the bottom of the 1st will have a lot to do with the importance of a second-of-seven NLCS  match-up: but the cameras will be trained on Lasorda, Martinez and Padilla, and not on the scoreboard. And any up-and-in fastballs are likely to be interpreted as more than pitches designed to move the hitter off the plate. This is for all the marbles in the National League, but this isn’t LA-St. Louis, or Philadelphia vs. the Rockies. This is an old fashioned grudge match between teams and players that don’t each other very much. And it will be pure entertainment.

The Colorado Rockies held off the rallying Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Thursday to take the second game in their five game series, 5-4. The key for the Purples was an unlikely two run homer off the bat of catcher Yorvit Torrealba, who hadn’t had a four base knock since May. Torrealba’s knock was complemented by solid pitching from Rockies’ starter Aaron Cook and bullpen aces Jose Contreras, Matt Belisle, Rafael Betancourt, Franklin Morales and all-world closer Huston Street (above). The Heltons, who won during the regular season by counting on the bats of an unlikely mix of new heroes, depended on the bat of yet another unknown newcomer: in this case it was left fielder Carlos “Cargo” Gonzalez. Gonzalez — a former Showboat prospect and a throw-in in the off season Oakland-Colorado Matt Holliday-for-Huston Street trade — spent much of the last two seasons in triple-A, while Denver’s front office waited for him to pan out. Gonzalez got his chance this year, after a series of injuries made room for him in the Colorado outfield. On Thursday, the fleet Venezuelan went 3-5 to spark the otherwise sleepy Rockies’ line up.

When the Oakland A’s got Matt Holliday from the Colorado Rockies in the Huston Street trade back in November of 2008, they thought their search for a big bat was over: the Stillwater, Oklahoma native was a three time all star and three time silver slugger and he’d been named the 2007 World Series MVP. But Holliday didn’t seem to fit in in Oakland (he hit an otherwise anemic .286 with 11 home runs in 93 games), and on July 24, 2009 Oakland A’s guru Billy Beane swapped him to St. Louis for three top prospects: Brett Wallace, Clayton Mortensen and Shane Peterson. In St. Louis, Holliday tore the cover off the ball — hitting .353 with 13 home runs in just 63 games, and propelling the Redbirds into the post season. He was just what Tony La Russa ordered.

Holliday’s post season experience gave St. Louis the confidence they needed against L.A. With Albert Pujols and Holliday in the middle of their order and Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright their big guns as starters, St. Louis was set to head into L.A. to face Joe Torre’s big bats. L.A. took the first game, with a surprisingly shaky outing by Carpenter. But St. Louis came back to dominate the second game: and it looked like the Redbirds were set to even the series at one game apiece. But with two outs in the ninth ining and St. Louis leading, the otherwise sure-handed Holliday dropped a sinking liner off the bat of first sacker James Loney to give the Dodgers new life. Casey Blake then walked and former Nats Ronnie Belliard singled home the tying run, before Mark Loretta’s short centerfield single provided the 3-2 walk off win. “It’s tough to swallow,” Holliday said after the game. “Obviously, I feel terrible. But I just missed the ball. It hit my stomach. I think I can catch a ball hit right at me.” The Trolleys now lead the series, 2-0.

The Nats looked like they were headed for yet another anemic night at the plate, as Billingsley mastered the Anacostia line up with six innings of no hit baseball. But with runners on first and second in the sixth, the suddenly tiring Billingsley was visited by Dodger pitching coach Rick Honeycutt. On the very next pitch — with Zimmerman at the plate – the Dodger righty threw a ball that hung up-and-in on Zimmerman, and ended up over the fence. In all, Billingsley threw six innings, giving up only one hit. It was a masterful if vain performance by the 12-10 Dodger. Nats fans were pleased to discover that they’re not the only ones frustrated by poor defense. An eighth inning fly ball off the bat of Adam Dunn dropped between confused left fielder Manny Ramirez and centerfielder Matt Kemp, while a sure double play bouncer up the middle was thrown wide at first. The miscues sent the Nats into the top of the ninth with a one run lead and a chance to close out the game.

The Nats were actually lucky in the 9th, despite MacDougal’s keep-em-in-the-game pitching and their two errors: two line shots ended the inning with the bases jammed. The Dodgers were only able to score once in the top of the ninth, leaving the score tied at four. In the bottom of the final frame, Justin Maxwell hit a single past a diving Ronnie Belliard into left, was sacrificed to second by Alberto Gonzalez and then stole third. A surprised Trolley catcher Russell Martin threw wide of the bag at third to put Maxwell 90 feet from home. That brought journeyman Pete Orr to the plate. His long fly ball to right — dropped by the usually sure-handed Andre Ethier — won the game.

Oddly (or perhaps predictably), the struggles of the L.A. Nine seemed to coincide with the return of Manny Ramirez, whose fifty game suspension actually energized the Chavez sluggers, giving new life to replacement Juan Pierre and Joe Torre’s raft of young boppers — particularly Andre Ethier (.283, 31 HRs) and first baseman James Loney (.283, 13 HRs).  Baseball’s community of pundits oohed and ahhed over Manny’s return (noting, and it seemed endlessly), that he remained “the best righthanded hitter in baseball,” but they couldn’t help wondering how the return of Pierre to the L.A. bench would effect Joe Torre’s mix. Good point: for instead of further energizing an already great squad, Manny’s appearance in Dodger Blue seemed to dampen L.A.’s race to the N.L. West title: the streaky Colorado Helton’s gained ground on L.A. and even the light hitting San Francisco McCoveys seemed resurgent.

But over the last two weeks all of that has changed. While the Rockies remain within spitting distance of first place, the Trolleys have reasserted their control over the division — most recently humbling McCovey ace Tim Lincecum. ”This club is playing with a purpose right now,” said manager Joe Torre. “They understand what’s out there and what’s at stake and they can’t expect anyone else to do it for them.” A lot of Dodgers point to the resurgence in the team’s pitching as the reason for the Trolleys’ new lease on the N.L. West — former Phuzzie Randy Wolf (11-6) has been a surprise among the starters (he outdueled Lincecum, and made it look effortless), and always-just-average Hiroki Kuroda has been much more than just average — winning his last two outings to give the Dodgers’ staff a needed lift. But the hero of the Dodgers’ latest resurgence (which comes just in time for the playoffs) isn’t anyone on the field. It’s L.A. General Manager Ned Colletti, who put together a series of trade deadline deals that, in retrospect, look nothing nothing less than brilliant.

Colletti might as well be working with hammers and saws, particularly considering the renovation job he’s done on the L.A. staff. The trade deadline acquisition of Jon Garland has provided a steadying groundball presence for L.A.’s younger pitchers, while beanball retread Vicente Padilla has provided a much-needed up-and-in intimidator for a group of knee shaking younger guys who love the outside half of the strike zone. Perhaps Colletti’s best decision, however, was the acquisition of former Birdland closer George Sherrill (1.70 ERA) who has become a par excellance set-up man and sometime closer who provides a lights out presence for the L.A. 8th. And that’s not all: the haunting of Washington (Juan Rivera, et. al.) continues with a resurgent Ronnie Belliard, who is hitting the skin off the ball in L.A. Then too, Jim Thome seems more than comfortable in his new role as a lefthanded bat off the bench. Who would have thunk it. Here we are in September, and Joe Torre’s first place team is being led by a bunch of gamers with enough mileage on their cleats to populate a retirement home. When we should be talking about Manny, we’re talking about Jon and Vicente and Ronnie — a passle of veterans who owe their playoff dreams to a G.M. who knows a bargain when he sees one. The L.A. Dodger’s might be Joe Torre’s team, but they’re also Ned Colletti’s.