. . . because, while the Nationals keep winning in Philly, they still have seven games to play and, no matter what they do, will finish no better than third. We’re not just being killjoys: while it’s wonderful to see our Anacostia Nine play so well (especially at “Nats Park North”), there are some among us who (in the middle of the 7th inning last night — and then again in the 8th) stood up and screamed — “that’s just great, but where were you in June?”

The answer oughta be obvious: trying to find a pitching staff. That the Nats have now won consistently, when it counts the least, is evidence that (finally), that seems to have been done. John Lannan didn’t pitch brilliantly last night, but he fought hard and well (he’s not the same pitcher we saw last year), and a whole handful of other arms have now emerged: Milone and Peacock, and Wang and Detwiler — not to mention Jordan Zimmermann and Stephen Strasburg (and, just maybe, Livan Hernandez). And those are just the starters.

Then too, the bats have nearly ended their slumber: the Nationals pounded out ten hits last night, which included home runs from Danny Espinosa (his 21st, setting a Nationals rookie record), and the vastly underrated Wilson Ramos (who hit his 14th, which is none too shabby). More importantly, the Nats shook off their disturbing habit of serving tea to men on base — eight were left on base last night, but that number is going down, and they’ve damned near returned to the league mean.

As important (we think) is that the Nationals are now 9-8 against their in-division rivals — with the bonus that Nats fans have started to stream north. That an indication (perhaps), that Nats fans are anticipating what might (might) happen next year. “It’s a fun time,” Danny Espinosa said of his visit to the not-so-friendly confines of The Bank. “It’s a fun game to play against them. I want to play them hard because I know we can beat them. We are showing that. For myself, personally, I enjoy playing against the team.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: We’ve decided to change the description of the New York Mets — they’re no longer “the chokes.” That description more aptly fits the Atlanta Braves, who barely showed up to play the Marlins last night in Miami, and lost to the stinking Fish. It wasn’t even close. Now they know how it feels. The Braves now lead the Cardinals (who woulda thought — and certainly not us), by a single game and some spit. The Cardinals surprised everyone (including their own fans) and rallied to beat the Mets in St. Louis, 6-5 . . .

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You can never have too much pitching, but it appears that (if yesterday is any indication), the Nationals have more than enough for next year. Ross Detwiler is the latest evidence — the young lefty produced another more-than-solid outing on Tuesday night, at the back end of a day-night double header, taming the Philadelphia Phillies through 7.1 innings. He shut down the defending N.L. East champs and provided a sweep of the doubleheader in Philadelphia.

The 3-0 victory put the Nationals at 8-8 vs. Philadelphia this season, and Charlie Manuel has to be impressed — the Nats play Philadelphia tough, which is more than you can say about their abilities against the Marlins. Of course, Detwiler had help: a Danny Espinosa home run in the second, a throwing error from Phillies’ catcher Carlos Ruiz that allowed Jayson Werth to score, and his own single up the middle in the sixth.

But Detwiler’s heroics tell only a part of the story: while the box score shows a Nationals’ win, a Philadelphia fans memory will come down to this — an upstart team and untried lefty came into “the Bank” and outdueled Cliff Lee (with his stinking 2.38 ERA), a member of Philadelphia’s vaunted quartet of starters — the third of four veteran pitchers that Philadelphia is counting on to mount yet another assault in this game of capture the flag.

Of course, the other line in Philadelphia is not so much that the Nationals won, but that the Phillies lost. The Ashburns have already clinched the division and can rightly (if lamely) claim that impressive as Detwiler was, Philadelphia’s twin losses on Tuesday show that the Ponies aren’t exactly all in. Still, the Bard of South Philadelphia, is a little disturbed, and not necessarily because he’s paid to be.

“I’m not worried, I just like to see us play better,” manager Charlie Manuel said following the twin losses. “We clinched our division three days ago. Right now, I wouldn’t call it going through the motions. I’d say we’re not focused. We’re not focused into the game, I feel like. It’s normal in some respects.”

For Davey Johnson, however, Detwiler’s pitching (and not the Phillies’ performance), was the story of the game — he was why they performed poorly. “I can’t say enough good things about him,” Johnson said of his young starter. “The Phillies are a great hitting ballclub and he was letter perfect . . . Today he was nice, calm and collected and threw a lot of quality pitches.”

Detwiler made headlines, but so too did Drew Storen, who was perfect in the ninth, and notched his 40th save. Considering the Nationals’ bullpen performance in 2010, Storen’s season long excellence should be cause for a celebration or two. Storen has given the Nationals just over 72 innings in the role of closer this year, with a 2.86 ERA. Those numbers put him among the league’s elite.

No Country For Tim Lincecum: Forget pitching, what you can’t ever have enough of is baseball. Sliding up and down the dial last night (well, it used to be a dial), you could take in a murder in Connecticut over at CNN, or No Country For Old Men on AMC — it must be a marathon, they’ve shown it back to back on successive nights . . .

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A regular reader of ours, an L.A. native, keeps pounding away about his beloved Dodgers — and like all good partisan fans, he predicted they’d win the N.L. West and then sweep their way through the post-season. “They’re the new Giants,” he said last April, “except that they’re better.”

Such expectations have not been realized: the Dodgers are a single game under .500, and are mired in third place on the left coast — well behind the disappointing Giants, and twelve games out of first place. This hasn’t stopped this fan from continuing his verbal assault. “Yeah,” he says. “But what about Clayton Kershaw? You have to admit, now, c’mon. Kershaw’s the best pitcher in the National League.”

Our tactic has been to ignore this, while reminding him of his April prediction — and what has happened in L.A. since. But at least when it comes to Kershaw, he has a point. If there’s one bit of good news that Nationals fans can take away from their most recent soggy series with the Trolleys (they lost two of three), it’s that at least they didn’t have to face Kershaw. And last night, against San Francisco, Kershaw put himself in the running for the Cy Young, outdueling the McCovey’s Tim Lincecum — and throwing an eight inning, three hit, nine strikeout gem.

Kershaw is now 18-5, and measures up well against the other hurlers in line for the Cy Young: Ian Kennedy, Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. The problem is that Kershaw plays for the Dodgers, which shouldn’t make the least bit of difference when it comes to the Cy Young voting — except that it will.

Even so, Kershaw should now be considered a front runner: while he doesn’t have the profile of Halladay, he leads the N.L. in strikeouts (ahead of Lincecum, Halladay, Lee and Kennedy — and in that order), and the fact that he plays for the L.A. Bankrupts could actually be in his favor. He’s pulled off a great season despite the team around him, and he leads the Nationals League in innings, ERA and strikeouts per nine.

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Jayson Werth’s three run home run — and the pitching of lefty Ross Detwiler — led the Washington Nationals to a 4-1 victory over the reeling Arizona Diamondbacks at Nationals Park on Monday night. The Werth home run (he was 2-4 in the victory) provided the difference in the game, with the slumping free agent finally hitting the ball with authority. It was the sixth loss in a row for the Diamondbacks in their quest to win the N.L. West. They now lead the Giants in the West by a single game.

Detwiler, who is now in the mix for a starting spot in 2012, turned in an impressive performance, giving up six hits and one earned run in 6.2 innings of work. Detwiler’s outing provided further evidence that the former sixth overall draft pick has finally arrived in the majors: “He threw a good game,” Snakes’ manager Kirk Gibson said after his team’s loss. “He came after us, but we couldn’t put anything together. He didn’t give us any free chances.”

Werth’s at-bats, meanwhile, have finally begun to provide evidence that he’s emerging from his season long slump. “Probably the last week to 10 days, I’ve really locked it in,” he said after the game. “It was a struggle, really. It has been a long time coming. I knew where it was. I just didn’t know how to get there. Finally, I feel I’m getting there.”

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: It was an irritable crowd that greeted the Diamondbacks on Monday, the residue (a section mate offered) of the Phillies’ visit over the weekend. “I feel almost at home now that those guys are gone.” The only real negatives of the night were reserved for the Phillies — and for the Nationals’ ownership. When a fan was escorted out of the ballpark for throwing Henry Blanco’s home run back on the field, the section stood and booed. “These guys don’t get it,” a regular noted. “We’re trying to get people in here, not kick ‘em out.”

But most of the negative comments on Monday were reserved for the D-Backs, who seemed anything but the leaders of the West. “These guys look like they’re asleep,” a section regular noted. “I’ve never seen a team so down.” Another Nats regular was even more outspoken. “Who are these guys,” he said. “I mean really — Cody Ransom? Collin Cowgill? These are the guys who are taking on the Giants? Give me a break.” Later, when Ryan Roberts came to the plate, one of the regulars laughed. “It’s like watching the Illustrated Man,” he said. “I know he’s good, but geez. That ink is moving.”

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The Washington Nine are notoriously mediocre on the road — and the road includes places like Colorado where, on Thursday, the Nationals’ bats once again proved vulnerable to good (but not great) pitching. The Colorado Rockies, suffering through their own sub-.500 season, beat the Nationals easily, 6-3, extending the team’s road woes this year. The Nationals have lost ten of their last 13 on the road.

The Nats first inning was promising, with Rick Ankiel, Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse reaching base — but the team was unable to capitalize (scoring just one). It would be another eight innings before the Nationals threatened, sending six hitters to the plate before succumbing. So which is it: did the Nationals have a poor game at the plate — or was Rockies’ starter Esmil Rogers so good that the Nats Nine just couldn’t touch him?

The explanation, courtesy of Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson, is that while Rogers was good, he was nothing special. The problem is the hitting: “We had the right guys up there,” Johnson said. “We just didn’t make it happen. We picked it up in the ninth inning, but it was a little too late.”

If there was a piece of good news that Nats’ fans could take from the loss, it was that long reliever Ross Detwiler proved “serviceable” (Davey Johnson’s term) in his first start in since forever, throwing five complete innings while giving up five hits. But the Rockies got to Detwiler for one in the fourth, and then one more in fifth, before piling in on Ryan Mattheus in the eighth.

The Rockies’ eighth included a walk (to Todd Helton), a Troy Tulowitzki double, an intentional walk, a single, a hit by pitch and another walk. This was hardly Murderers’ Row, but it meant that the Nats would have to climb back into the game from a 6-1 deficit. Despite scoring two in the ninth (Ramos singled, Ankiel singled — and Ryan Zimmerman doubled), the deficit proved just too big to overcome.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Rockies are eight games under .500, and you have to wonder why. There are teams in baseball who’d kill to have the middle of their line-up: Seth Smith, Carlos Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki and Todd Helton. But, while that daunting roster is what the Arizona Diamondbacks faced on April 1, it’s not what the Nationals faced yesterday . . .

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Chien-Ming Wang still isn’t ready for prime time. The former Yankee and new Nationals’ righthander struggled through five innings against the Braves yesterday, giving up seven hits and two runs through five innings — and the Nationals fell to Atlanta in the final game of their three game set, 6-4.

While Wang recovered from a shaky first inning (in which he gave up two runs), he had trouble in the fifth, which proved the key to the game. Wang threw wildly on a Brandon Beachy bleeder for a two base error, Jose “George” Constanza followed with a single and, after a force play and an out at the plate, Dan Uggla plated the two stranded runners (and himself) with a three run homer.

The Nats fought back, rapping out a four run sixth inning, with a walk by Danny Espinos, singles by Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse, a Beachy wild pitch and a Jayson Werth home run. But four runs weren’t enough to secure the victory. Despite the loss, pitching coach Steve McCatty was upbeat on Wang. “He had better sink,” McCatty said after the game. “The offspeed pitches were a little flat. He got hurt on that. If he makes a play in the fifth inning — no damage.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Jason Marquis debuted for the Arizona Diamondbacks yesterday, and it didn’t go well. The former Nats’ righty gave up ten hits and seven runs over four innings, as the Snakes fell to the McCoveys, 8-1. Marquis wasn’t the only thing traded to Arizona; so too was the explanation for why he does poorly: his sinker wasn’t sinking . . .

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It’s quite possible that finally — five months into the 2011 baseball season — the Nationals have finally found their leadoff hitter. Batting in the first slot in the line-up last night, centerfield veteran Rick Ankiel blasted two home runs in leading the Nationals to a 5-3 victory over the Braves at Nationals Park. Ankiel’s homers allowed Livan Hernandez (six innings, six hits and three strikeouts) to walk away with his sixth win of the season.

Ankiel’s homers were only his fourth and fifth of the year and came in the first and the fifth inning — both off of usually reliable Braves’ starter Jair Jurrjens, who registered his fourth loss. Ankiel, who has been in and out of the line-up all year (and has struggled at the plate) seems finally to be swinging with authority. “You just look for a pitch to drive. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you make it happen, sometimes you don’t,” Ankiel said after the victory. “Lately, I’ve been making good contact and good things are happening.”

It’s too soon to tell whether Ankiel’s Monday night performance means that he will be an every game feature at the leadoff position, but Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson liked what he saw: “Now he [Ankiel] is [playing] and he has cut down on his strikeouts, his swings are better,” Johnson said. “That comes with playing. In the last couple of years, I don’t think he has played much.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: If either Pittsburgh or Cincinnati are to have a chance in the N.L. Central, they’re going to have to beat the teams behind them. Last night they didn’t. Newest Ahoy Derrek Lee celebrated his arrival in Pittsburgh with two home runs, but the Pirates couldn’t beat the no-account Cubs, suffering their fourth loss in a row by a 5-3 score. Catch ‘em while you can; they’re fading, and fast . . .

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