It’s probably just a coincidence, but on the day that Tom Boswell pummeled the Lerners and Mike Rizzo for refusing to spend money (or take chances), the team pulled off a major trade with the Oakland A’s. Maybe Mikey was feeling the heat. Maybe not. Either way, the deal brings uber-talented lefty Gio Gonzalez to the Nationals to head up what is now one of baseball’s best rotations, but ships out four talented prospects, including Brad Peacock, whose as close to a “can’t miss” as the Nationals have. So: was it worth it?

Amanda Comack over at the Washington Times says that Gonzalez “fits precisely what Washington wants,” and gives the team a top-of-the-rotation innings eater. Comack points out that Gonzalez’s numbers translate well into the National League, though he walks a lot of hitters (91, to lead the AL last year). John Heyman over at Baseball Insider gives the Nats an attaboy, saying the team improved its rotation to the point where it may be a contender. Keith Law, meanwhile, says he’s not that impressed with Gonzalez (you have to wonder why, but it’s Keith Law), while Buster “Blind Dog” Olney (who actually sometimes finds a bone) says that Gonzalez reminds him of Twinkies starter Brad Radke — which is to say that Buster doesn’t know what to think.

We prefer to issue our judgments over a glass of scotch, which is where (last night) we received this opinion from one of the team’s season ticket holders. “The price is high,” this fan said, “maybe too high.” The fan then pointed out that “Rizzo would not have done this had he landed [Mark] Buehrle.” True. Which is not only to point out that scotch is a powerful truth serum (not always a good thing, mind you), but to suggest that if Rizzo & Company had bid higher for the former Pale Hose veteran, the team would not only have a front-of-the-rotation arm that is (arguably) better than Gonzalez, but they would have been able to hang on to both Peacock and Milone — whose arms will now be tested in the cavernous confines of the Oakland Coliseum.

Sometimes the most obvious conclusions are the ones you stick with — that Boswell’s criticism remains on target precisely because when Rizzo couldn’t pony up the bucks for Buehrle he had no choice but to part with four prospects for a front line pitcher. Gonzalez is a great addition and we applaud it, but spending the money on Buehrle and hanging on to Peacock, Milone, Norris and Cole would have been the wiser move. Yeah. True. But we’ll take it and hope that the Lerners are so irritated by what Boswell wrote that they’ll be determined to prove him wrong.

The Nationals closed out their home half of the 2011 season with a decisive, 3-0 win over the Braves — bringing the 35,000-plus fans that came to see them to their feet in sustained standing ovations for their home nine. The victory, the team’s 78th, was sparked by the pitching of Ross Detwiler and home runs from Wilson Ramos and Michael Morse.

Following the victory, Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson praised his club for their year. “There is a lot of fire in this ballclub,” he said. “They are not satisfied with this year. You could probably ask everybody in that room and they wish the season started again. That’s the sense I get from this ballclub. The young nucleus is coming along. It’s just a tribute to the whole organization to be at this point.”

In many ways this was a classic Nationals’ victory: Ross Detwiler pitched out of two jams to notch the win, with the Nationals’ bullpen of Henry Rodriguez, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen locking down the last home triumph. Rodriguez was particularly effective, striking out three while throwing his fastball, in one instance, at 101 miles per hour.

“Once you get into that bullpen of theirs and you’re facing Rodriguez, Clippard and Storen, the swings get a little tougher. Those guys are pretty good,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. After the game, Phil Wood thought that the Rodriguez outing was particularly impressive — and that “there would come a time” when we’d see the swap that brought him from Oakland as one of the best trades in the team’s history. Wood was being understated: that is apparent now.

Following his home run in the bottom of the seventh, which put the game nearly out of Atlanta’s reach, Michael Morse was given a curtain call, his first ever. “It feels great to win,” Morse said afterward. “The team played great. It’s good momentum to show Washington that we are putting together a good team.”

The Wisdom Of Section 1-2-9: Nationals’ fans are getting louder and more outspoken — the result (perhaps) of the recent winning streak and hopes for next year. It was in the 7th inning that they made their feelings known to the few Braves fans in attendance, standing and chanting “Let’s Go Cardinals! Let’s Go Cardinals!”

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The Washington Nationals won ugly on Friday night, but they won. With two on and one out in the eleventh inning, Jayson Werth hit a bounder to Astros’ third baseman Jimmy Paredes who, in an attempt to get a force out at second, threw the ball into left field. The muff scored Ryan Zimmerman with the walk-off run, giving the Nationals a badly needed, 4-3, bottom of the 11th inning walk off victory.

“Initially, I hit it and I knew there was a potential double play, so I was running hard out of the box,” Werth said following the victory. “I looked to see what happened at second when I didn’t see the ball. I thought it was going to be there. I kept looking, and I saw it go in the outfield. That was that.” The walk-off notched a win for Tyler Clippard — but the victory could have gone to the entire bullpen, which kept the Astros off the board from the 6th inning on.

The botched throw from Paredes lacked the deep-throated dramatics of the Nationals’ usual walk-off triumphs, but the win was welcome: the Nationals had struggled with putting runs on the board of late, and were attempting to recover from a late-game 7-4 pasting at the hands of the Dodgers on Thursday.

Even with the win, the Nationals were able to scatter only six hits off of five Houston pitchers. The lack of offense has been the most disheartening part of an up-and-down season. In the wake of the Houston win on Friday, Nationals’ manager Davey Johnson told the media the problem has kept him awake nights. “I’m used to a little more of a comfort zone,” Johnson said. “With all the young players … it’s been that kind of a struggle. Everybody’s trying to probably do a little too much.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The clubhouse is crowded with new arrivals, and three of them started the game on Friday. Steve Lombardozzi started at short, Chris Marrero was at first, and Tom Milone was on the mound. The early results are just starting to come in, but here’s what they say: Lombardozzi has not yet mastered major league pitching, Marrero has yet to hit the long ball, and Milone needs to work on getting through a line-up the second time . . .

For those who think that is too negative, there’s this — there doesn’t seem much doubt that Lombardozzi can hit, Marrero’s double last night to left-center was one of the hardest hit non-dinger slaps this year at Nationals’ Park and Milone is absolutely unintimidated by major league hitting . . .

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The Nationals seem to have slipped back — with their performance against the Redlegs in Cincinnati a reminder of just how terrible they were in April and May. Yesterday’s game was a case in point: the Nationals kept pace with the Reds, but only when they needed to, and ended up losing the third game of the three game series in the 14th inning. The loss came when Joey Votto took a Collin Balester offering deep to end the game in another Cincy walk-off.

How did the Nationals get swept in Cincinnati? Poor pitching, sloppy defense and no punch at the plate. That’s a sure combination for mediocrity — or worse. In his last start of the season, Jordan Zimmermann wasn’t able to get out of the fifth (giving up six hits and three earned runs), the defense behind him booted the ball twice, and the Nationals were 4-19 with runners in scoring position.

The same kind of lack of punch dominated the series for the Nats: they were outscored 15-10, though that was an improvement over the simply awful offensive output against the D-Backs the week before, when they were outscored 10-3. The problem is not just hitting (Ryan Zimmerman is hitting the ball well, as is Jayson Werth), it’s hitting when there are runs to be had. Ian Desmond left eight runners on base yesterday, and Danny Espinosa six. So it was that Washington outhit the Reds (which is actually saying something), but without any appreciable results.

The loss was Washington’s sixth in a row, and the team is now sliding well under .500, and in danger of passing Florida for last place honors. A last place finish would be a major disappointment, as it would undermine the noticed improvement in play — and personnel. It’s going to take some doing to return to dead-even: the Nationals take on the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta starting tomorrow.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The fans of Cincinnati have to be among the most loyal of any in the majors. Nary a boo is heard for their struggling players — it’s almost as if their Redlegs are in first place. And there’s little question that Joey Votto is the fan favorite: consistently and vocally cheered. He’s the Ryan Zimmerman of Cincinnati. Even so (and in spite of their three game sweep against the Nationals), this is a team that needs more than a few pieces . . .

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The Cubs dismissed G.M. Jim Hendry on Friday — who was tearful and blubbery in his departure (“whaddayou, Jim, some kinda Hollywood finocchio . . .?). But the firing wasn’t exactly a surprise. The Cubs are going nowhere, and a lot of that has to do with the contract decisions that Hendry inked: $136 million to Alfonso Soriano, $91.5 for Carlos Zambrano, $48 million for Kosuke Fukudome and $10 million for a single year to Carlos Pena. The Cubs have started to shed some of that, but they need to do more, a lot more.

Aaron Boone and the BBTN crowd over at ESPN were asked the three things they would do now, if they were the Cubs, and they talked of clubhouse character and finding good talent — all of it good advice. But transforming the Cubs will take more than adding good players at reasonable prices, and saying that the team needs to “change the culture of losing” doesn’t help. What exactly does that mean? So here, unbidden, are our three simple ideas of what the Cubs can do.

First, show some patience. The best pitcher in the Cubs system is now in Tampa Bay — and his name is Chris Archer. The 6-3 righty was traded, with a packet of prospects, for Matt Garza last winter. Garza is plenty good, but Archer could be a lot better. The Cubs will never know, because they got impatient, and Garza looked attractive. This is an almost genetic habit of the North Side Drama Queens. Enough already: develop players and hang on to them. Like they have done (finally, blessedly) with Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney. Listen (you stupid jerks), instead of shipping out Josh Vitters (he can play third, for Aramis Ramirez — who’s going to get injured again, any minute now) and Tyler Colvin, play them. And when they don’t play well, play them anyway . . .

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Jesus Flores homered and Jonny Gomes drove in two runs with a clutch single to left to lead the Washington Nationals over the Cincinnati Reds, 3-1 at Nationals Park on Thursday. The Flores homer was his first since May of 2009, while the Gomes hit came against his former team. “Against the Reds or not against the Reds, it would bring a smile to my face,” Gomes said.

The Flores-Gomes tandem helped righty starter Jordan Zimmermann to his eighth win of the season. Zimmermann, who will apparently be shut down after his next start (or the one after), did not have his best stuff, but gutted out an impressive 5.2 innings while giving up six hits. Zimmermann’s ERA now stands at 3.11 — and his 2011 campaign has to be considered a success, which sets him up as a major contributor (and likely #2 starter) in 2012.

Gomes two run single in the sixth was the difference in the game, but Zimmermann’s outing was saved by a quartet of Nationals’ relievers. Ryan Mattheus, Henry Rodriguez, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen threw a combined 3.1 innings, while giving up just two hits. Clippard notched his 32nd hold, while Storen added his 33rd save. Storen continued to build on his steady reputation — if he wasn’t before, he must now be considered to be one of the best closers in the game.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: It seems like old news now, but it’s good to note, if just for the record. Former Nats’ veteran righty Jason Marquis was supposed to provide another needed starter to help the Diamondbacks overcome the Giants in the N.L. West, but he’s out for the season with a fractured leg . . . the Marquis injury (as we remember) came against the Mets, after the former Nats’ starter had two rocky outings with his new club . . .

Now it appears, that other semi-big name for the Nationals at the trade deadline, Denard Span, continues to suffer the effects of a concussion that has sidelined him for much of the 2011 campaign. Span had returned to the Twins’ line-up, but yesterday he was put back on the disabled list after suffering from migraines. Which is only to say — sometimes it’s the trades you don’t make that matter. If Mike Rizzo had pulled the trigger on a Span trade, the needed centerfielder would have been spending time on the D.L. in D.C. . . .  and the Nationals would have been without one of their key (Drew Storen or Tyler Clippard) bullpen arms . . .

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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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