For Phillies Phans this is the apocalypse. Chris Carpenter held the “can’t miss” Ashburns to just three hits, and the upstart Cardinals went on to take the NLDS three games to two in a sparkling 1-0 win in Philadelphia, ending the Phillies post-season dream of another October World Series appearance. Phillies fans were so disappointed, they didn’t even boo.

The Philadelphia loss was as surprising as the poor performance of Charlie Manuel’s team, which couldn’t put together enough hits to cage the Redbirds. “Actually, I don’t know what to say,” Manuel said, following the loss. “I just got through talking to our team, and basically when I look at it, we played 162 games, and definitely we had the best record in baseball.”

But the best record (and the best pitching staff), wasn’t enough to carry the Phillies into the NLCS — with Phillies’ fans describing their team’s elimination as “a crushing disappointment.” The depth of the loss is reflected in the Philadelphia blogosphere: “Thud” was the headline of The Good Phight, while Beerleaguer led its coverage with “Failure In Philly.”

But while baseball’s blogworld focuses on “the Phailure in Philadelphia,” Friday’s loss was more the result of Chris Carpenter’s pitching performance than the poor hitting of Ryan Howard & Company. Carpenter walked none and struck out three, taming Halladay in what Cardinals’ manager Tony LaRussa called “a dream match-up” of Cy Young winners. Carpenter threw 110 pitches, 70 of them for strikes. It was a Phorgettable night in Philly, but not in St. Louis.

Of course, there are teams in baseball that would love to have bragging rights to a 102 win season — including the one right here in Washington. But expectations were so high in Philadelphia that what will follow now is an off-season of recriminations, and an effort to find that one missing piece that Phillies’ fans think they need. It might be ugly. “There are no two ways around it: 2011 is a failure for the Phillies,” Crashburn Alley said. Oh, boo-hoo . . .

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There’s not a game that goes by without the Nationals partisans of Section 1-2-9 talking at length about the Nationals — why they win, why they lose, and what pieces they need to put in place to become champions. Yesterday’s heroic 5-4 win over the Chicago Cubs proved the exception: there were enough Cubs fans in the crowd (subdued, to be sure — at least in comparison to past years), to turn the section’s attention to the North Side Drama Queens. And their prodigious problems.

“They’re awful,” a Cub’s fan (inhabiting a seat usually reserved for a Nats’ regular) said. “They brought this kid [Casey Coleman] up at the last minute because we’re out of pitching.” The Cubbie rooter spent the game shaking his head. “They’ll find a way to lose,” he said in the 7th inning — after the Nationals tied the game. “You watch.” His words were prophetic.

The Cubs not only gave up the lead in the 7th, they worked diligently to lose the game in extra innings. The talisman of Cubbiedom came in the 10th inning, when Cubs’ reliever Marcos Mateo injured his elbow while pitching to Jayson Werth. After Livan Hernandez sacrificed Werth to second, Cubs skipper Mike Quade stalked to the mound and called in closer Carlos Marmol — who was not expected to pitch.

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The Nats’ 7-4 victory over Philadelphia on Tuesday night had to be the most satisfying win of the season. Not only did the Nationals rack up a badly needed victory (coming off a two-of-three series in New York), but the team finally seemed to be doing everything right. While Tuesday night’s hero was Jayson Werth (who went 2-3, scored two and put a Joe Blanton offering in the left field seats), there were plenty of other reasons for celebrating: the savvy Livan Hernandez confounded Phillie hitters for nearly seven innings, Wilson Ramos (2-3, two RBIs, and a dinger of his own) solidified bragging rights for being one of the best young players in the game, and (once again) the Nats defense was flawless.

But it was Werth who led the way, and there’s now little question that he, with Ryan Zimmerman, is emerging as a team leader. “Obviously, anytime you hit a home run, you are going to have some satisfaction,” he said after the game. “Was it extra special against those guys? Probably a little bit. I was trying to perform well for Charlie [Manuel]. He hasn’t seen me play in a while. It was a big win.” The Nats are now back at .500, a perfect symbol of their solid play. They play the Phillies again tonight, but this time they’ll be facing Roy Halladay. It’ll be the toughest test of their young season.

If there’s one thing that’s absolutely useless, it’s the MLB “Power Rankings” — a weekly “metric” (a word used to describe everything except comprehensive empirical data), that compares a team to the other 29 in baseball. ESPN’s rankings combine run differential with a team’s place in the standings, XLOG ranks teams by a measures of “net runs” (runs scored minus runs scored against), while the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers just ranks teams — using no particular “metric.” In this week’s ESPN rankings the Nationals are 28th (behind the Rays, Red Sox, Tigers and Twins), in XLOG the Nats are 21st (which makes more sense) and in the Rogers this-is-just-how-I-feel ranking they are a woeful 27th.

So where are the Nats — really? The most useful rankings are notionally statistical, and straightforward: the Nationals rank 8th in runs scored (in the NL), 8th in OBP, 15th in hits, and 15th in batting average. That seems to confirm what Nats fans feel: the Nats line-up has been particularly anemic in the season’s first two weeks, but the hitting has been timely. The Nats are also right in the middle of the pack in pitching stats: 10th in ERA, 7th in strike outs, though a surprising fifth in BAA. But Washington is much better than average in fielding and (though this is much harder to measure), has relied on their more-than-solid bullpen to hold leads.

Phil Rogers has this right: the best stats remain the standings, the feel you have for a team — and some sense of the unseen intangibles. So if Nats fans were to make an objective assessment (which means they have to put aside their customary negativity), they’d have to say that the Nats are right where they should be, at .500. There are some good signs: the Nats are much better defensively than they were last year and have a top-flight bullpen. Their starting pitching is actually not that bad. They’re better than the Mets and match-up pretty well with the Marlins (though the Fish have better starters). They’re a middle of the pack team with a lot of potential. This early judgment vindicates Mike Rizzo, whose off-season move emphasizing defense has yielded solid results.

That’s all good news, especially considering where the Nats were last year — which was near the bottom in nearly everything. The bad news is that to rise above the pack the team will need to stay healthy. That’s a problem, particularly considering Ryan Zimmerman’s stint on the DL and Adam LaRoche’s tweaky shoulder. Can the Nats get better? Sure they can. But they’re going to have to rely on good performances from those fill-in veterans that Rizzo brought aboard as super subs in the off season. They’re going to have to hit and field for Zimmerman and LaRoche. Those are big shoes to fill.

The Philadelphia Phillies-San Francisco Giants NLCS is now a nasty confrontation — as an angry and glaring Roy Halladay and an equally irritated Pat “the Bat” Burrell exchanged looks and words in the first inning of Game Five. Halladay stared in at umpire Jeff Nelson and Burrell noticed: “What are you looking at?” he yelled. The Halladay-Burrell mini-confrontation is symbolic of how these two teams feel about each other, as was apparent even in Game One, when Halladay tossed Cody Ross’s broken bat to the ground instead of handing it to him. Such simple discourtesies are noticed in baseball: the NLCS isn’t your back yard. For Halladay, the winner of the tilt’s fifth game in San Francisco on Thursday (and for Burrell as well) such exchanges are all about “the competition,” but we might expect more of the same at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday: “the competition” is becoming heated, the games more intense, the reward a spot in the World Series against the AL champ.

“This sounds like a non-story,” one Phillies fan reflected. “Burrell has struck out so many times in his career that he should know the drill by now — go sit down and shut up.” But in the pages of the Philadelphia Daily News (that model of journalistic excellence), Phillies’ fans are gearing up to give Burrell a typical Philadelphia welcome when the series resumes on Saturday. “In explicit, vulgar terms, with a reference to Halladay’s possible Oedipal issues, Burrell rhetorically asked Halladay what he was looking at.” Halladay was less confrontational: “You understand,” he said, “there’s a lot of emotions obviously at this point in this season. He’s a competitior and these things happen.” Well, okay. But “these things” are happening with some regularity now, as Tim Lincecum channeled Burrell in the 7th, staring down Jimmy Rollins at third as he stalked from the mound: “You stay there,” he yelled. “You stay there.” Lincecum’s words weren’t enough to keep Philadelphia from a must-win in the fifth game — and now the series returns to Philadelphia, where the Giants will send Jonathan Sanchez to the mound against Roy Oswalt. Phillies’ fans will be ready.

The hitting of Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez and the stellas pitching of John Lannan paced the Washington Nationals to a 9-2 victory over the Pirates at PNC Park on Saturday. Rodriguez led the Nats’ fifteen hit attack, with an opposite field home run, while John Lannan pitched seven complete — giving up only five hits. It was his best outing of the year and solidified his place in the rotation for 2011. “Pudge and I did a great job just mixing it up on both sides of the plate,” Lannan said after the game. “I threw some [four-seam fastballs] inside to righties and some [two-seam fastballs] into lefties. I had my changeup working again, and that’s been the pitch I’ve gone to if I was getting behind hitters. It kept them off-balance a little bit. You get a little more comfortable out there when your team puts up that many runs.”

Desmond Makes His Case: Washington Nationals’ rookie shortstop Ian Desmond is making a strong case for being considered as the N.L.’s premier rookie. But two obstacles stand in his way — he makes too many errors (31! — including two last night), and the competition is stiff. The early betting was that Atlanta’s Jason Heyward would win the award, and for a time it looked like he would. Heyward set the baseball world chattering through April and May, but his production fell off through the summer. Still: .282 with 16 home runs (and he’s only 20) could find him shoehorned into the top spot. The betting now seems to be that Buster Posey will get the nod — despite the fact that he started the season late. Tim Dierkes over at MLB Trade Rumors posted a list in April that included all of the good guesses, which included Heyward and Desmond, as well as Florida’s Gaby Sanchez, San Francisco’s Buster Posey, Chicago’s Starlin Castro, Pittsburgh’s Pedro Alvarez, Washington’s Drew Storen (and Stephen Strasburg), and Cincinnati’s Mike Leake. That leaves out Cubbie Tyler Colvin, who’s having a tremendous year — he’s stroked 19 home runs.

You can make a strong case for Desmond, who has raised his batting average over the last month from the so-so mid-.260s to .287 — an unforeseen spike that, if it continues, could see the 24-year-old ending the season near .300. And Desmond has unpredicted power, line-driving nine home runs. That number could easily increase in 2011. Desmond’s long-ball potential is a plus for the Nats, who would gladly take a .280 batting average with a handful of home runs each year — but 20? 25? Desmond says that he patterns his play on the model provided by Empire glove man Derek Jeter and his numbers show it. While Jeter seems to be struggling for homers as he ages, the pinstriper once hit 24, a number well within reach of his younger apprentice. But Jeter’s value is his day-in-and-day-out crusade in the middle of the Yankees infield, his ability to play virtually injury free and his steady glove-work. Ah, and he has a .314 lifetime BA — which Desmond might find difficult to equal. Desmond is right to emulate his hero, but he has a long way to go to reach his level (cutting down on the errors would be the way to start). It’s the fielding stats that will likely doom Desmond in any final voting for the Jackie Robinson Award, which means that Giants workhorse Buster Posey will get the nod. It’s hard to argue with that choice — with a .328 batting average, he deserves it.

On Monday night in Phoenix, Livan Hernandez showed once again why he remains the acknowledged ace of the Washington Nationals staff. In  7.1 innings of solid in-and-out and up-and-down pitching, Hernandez surrendered just five hits to his former teammates in Arizona and the Nationals notched a much-needed road win 3-1. “[Hernandez] was outstanding,” Nats skipper Jim Riggleman said after the win. “I hated that last walk he had, because I was going to let him finish that inning and maybe finish the ballgame. When he’s throwing like that, hitting spots and keeping hitters off balance, it is one of those nights where he can go nine [innings].” Livan’s performance was matched by Nats’ catcher Ivan Rodriguez, whose second inning dinger was his 300th as a catcher. Sean Burnett closed the game, striking out two of the D-Backs last five hitters.

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: Sunday’s loss to the Phillies, a contest in which the Nats might have notched a sweep against their I-95 competitors, was emotionally churning, in large part because of the flood of Phillies fans — in town to cheer on their favorites. The tide of Pony partisans left Nats’ fans as embittered on Sunday as they had been at the end of Opening Day. “These people ought to stay the f — home,” a Curly W supporter muttered in the 6th inning. “This is sickening, not necessary,” another said. “Are we required to sell these people tickets?” But unlike Opening Day, the Nats apparently had it all figured out: MASN broadcaster Bob Carpenter kept talking about the “growing rivalry” between the clubs, as if to protect that Nats front office from the decision to fill the seats — no matter what.”It’ll be a rivalry when we put 20,000 fans in PNC Park,” a Nats fan growled, “and not until.” Cooler heads did not prevail: “It’ll turn around,” a Nats fan opined, and was answered by a glum rooter in one of the forward rows. “Yeah, it’ll turn around,” he said, “when the Nats get into the post-season.” There were also mutterings when a fan arrived late, proudly sporting a new Donovan McNabb jersey: “Wrong jersey, wrong ballpark, wrong team, wrong sport . . .”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The exchange on the health of “the kid” between CFG and one of our readers has become a torrent. Here’s the latest: “Dear editor: Thanks for your prompt and thoughtful response. Since that give-and-take worked so well, one further suggestion if I might: as the days pass with Saint Stephen on the sideline (now hopefully on the mend), could CFG please regularly update his physical and mental condition as warranted – including any medical info/predictions and gossip picked up from the various sources/websites perused constantly by CFG’s staff.  Many of your readers don’t always have the time to collect this valuable information — and rely on you to provide it. Please don’t lose track of the essential truth of this situation:  the fate of his sore arm is the big story of this franchise . . . Sincerely, An appreciative reader . . .”

Well, well, well. This is right in our wheelhouse. And yet the head of our research staff (here he is, with a group of CFG interns) is feeling the pressure. “Yes, big boss, I jumps in it,” he said. “I leave no stone on ground.” Several hours later we had our answer: “I think Mister Stephen in Arizona, mmmmm … chance maybe not so good,” he said. “Maybe boy in L.A. pitch good. Maybe, maybe not. I dunno.” And then he puckered his lips and kissed his miniature giraffe . . .

The pride of the N.L. Central, the Phillies of the Midwest, the North Side Drama Queens are “sinking like a stone,” have “bought the baseball farm,” have “reached the bottom of the barrel.” There is no cliche perfect enough to describe the extinction level event that has become your Chicago Cubs. Think it can’t get worse? It can, because it has. The Wrigley’s have now lost six in a row, and it hasn’t been pretty. The North Siders dropped what might have passed for a softball exhibition game to the Brew Crew last night by a score of 18-1. Repeat after me: 18-1. You can expect some of those kinds of games (where nothing in the world goes right), but the Cubs play them regularly, with aplomb and with no apparent loss of sleep. Over the last six games, the Cubs have been outscored 63-17.

The cataclysm has Cubs’ fans in an uproar. And the promised makeover might be years, not months, away — the Baby Bears are stuck with huge contracts to a number of perennial head cases (Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano) and, as of July 31, were only able to rid themselves of their two best players. Way to go Jim, nice job. When in doubt, get rid of those keeping you afloat. This just in: after thinking about it for less than a milisecond, Ryan Theriot told a reporter (stop the presses) that he likes being in L.A. Really? No kidding. Worse yet: this team went nova entirely on its own; this has nothing to do with fan interference in foul ground. It’s their own damn fault, as even the most diehard Wrigleyville partisans will now admit. It’s a sad and sorry story, but (like a car wreck) you can’t avert your eyes. In a strange (and sick) kind of way, it’s almost fun to watch. Unless you’re Lou.

Craig Stammen, just recalled from the Nats Syracuse Triple-A farm club, threw seven innings of brilliant baseball and super sub Alberto Gonzalez went 4-4 as the skidding Nats ended their five game losing streak with a 7-2 win in Atlanta. Stammen finally mastered what had been bothering him in successive starts prior to his demotion — he kept the ball down in the zone and threw strikes, keeping the Bravos hitters off balance. Stammen threw 99 pitches, 57 of them for strikes, before giving way to Sean Burnett in the 8th inning. “Craig was just outstanding,” skipper Jim Riggleman said after the win. And the skipper praised Alberto Gonzalez, who looked rusty at the plate on Monday. “He’s a great fielder,” Riggleman said, “and he can hit a little too.” This marked the second successive start for Gonzalez, who has done some spot pinch hitting. But Riggleman was uncertain whether the Gonzalez start was the beginning of a new trend. “He’s kind of the fourth guy among four guys, so it’s tough for him to get playing time,” Riggleman said.

In breaking loose for seven runs, the Nats end a despairing streak of one, two and three run games that saw them sink further into last place in the NL East. Relief seems to be in sight: Nyjer Morgan’s bat is finally heating up (he was 2-5 on Tuesday), Josh Willingham put one into the seats at Turner Field (his 14th), Ryan Zimmerman plated two RBIs — and then there was Alberto Gonzalez, whose 4-4 stint brought his BA to .292: oh, and he can field a little bit too. To cap it all off, Roger Bernadina is starting to look like a keeper (slapping balls to left field) and Tyler Clippard pitched a nifty clean 9th. The news gets even better from there. The Nats went errorless in nine innings, which must be some kind of record.

Today I Settle All Family Business, So Don’t Tell Me You’re Innocent: If you google “The Kid,” you get sites for a Charlie Chaplan movie, news that Angelina Jolie’s little girl wants to be a boy (“she likes to wear boy’s everything,” Angelina poofed), and a reach on Ted Williams who, it seems, was called “the kid” until someone thought of something better — like “The Splendid Splinter.” (Which reminds me: wasn’t Gaylord Perry once referred to as “The Splendid Spitter?” No? Okay, maybe not). But nowhere on the internet does anyone talk about our Anacostia Nine who, it is reported, are calling Stephen Strasburg “the kid” in the privacy of the Nats’ clubhouse. We’re betting the name will stick, confirming Angelina’s little pout about “Shiloh,” who “thinks she’s one of the brothers.”

Stephen’s nickname confirms that he too (and for sure) is now one of the Nats brothers (that’s what being given a nickname means) — albeit without the apparent transgender issues of Shiloh Vomit Pitt. And it’s a good thing. Strasburg took the heat after his Monday outing, as Braves fans everywhere (there aren’t as many as there once were for “America’s Team“) laid into “the kid” for giving up five runs (er, three earned) in the 7th inning of Monday night. Even some Nats fans were disappointed. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God — what happened? So here’s the deal: we here at CFG have taken a poll of our staff (final vote? 3-0) and determined that we would take, any day, an outing from any pitcher on our staff who could throw 6.1 (!), give up three earned runs (!), and strike out seven. You never know, if we have outings like that every game, we could actually win the division. Yeah, there’s no question about it, Monday’s performance shows that we need to send “the kid” to the minors to “straighten out his stuff” and “build his self confidence.”

Say It Ain’t So Mike: The Nats are apparently “entertaining offers” . . . no, that’s not the right phrase. Damn. Let’s start over. The Nats are “actively considering” … no, that’s not right either. Okay. Here it is. The Nats are talking to at least two teams about a trade that would involve Nats first sacker and potential All Star Adam Dunn, the heart and soul of your Washington Nationals (if you don’t count Ryan Zimmerman, Pudge Rodriguez, Stephen Strasburg, Ian Desmond, Josh Willingham, Livan Hernandez . . .). The report must be true: MLB Trade Rumors has it by way of Ken Rosenthal, who has it from the Chicago Sun Times, who has it from the White Sox.

The Angels are already interested, Rosenthal says, and Joe Cowley of the Greatest Newspaper in the Greatest City in America (it’s ahead of the Trib, dontchaknow), says that the Nats and Pale Hose are exchanging names, though the Sox don’t have much to give in the way of pitching prospects — they were all traded to the Little Monks from San Diego for Jumpin’ Jake Peavy. No one likes this kind of talk, least of all Adam Dunn, who doesn’t want to be a DH and likes it just fine here in D.C.  We like him here too, Mike — as he is headed for another season of 40 home runs (oops, he had only 39 last year) and is one of the surprises, perhaps the surprise on the team: unlike the other nine we slap together to play the Baltimore Pathetics, he’s fielding his position like a pro. And who would have guessed that? Then too, don’t we have enough pitching prospects? I know, let’s try Danny Cabrera. In fact, the only positive thing we could really gain from such a trade is an end to that obnoxious public address announcer and his “now batting for your Washington Nationals …. Adaaaam Dunnnnnn.” Hey, on second thought . . .