Led by Roger Bernadina, and behind the pitching of Gio Gonzalez and a host of relievers, the Washington Nationals banged out twelve hits and scored seven runs to swamp the Redlegs in Cincinnati on Friday night, 7-3. Bernadina was 2-5, plated three RBIs, and hit his second homer of the year to pace the D.C. attack.

The game was never much in doubt, particularly after the Nats put three on the board in the first inning, then followed that by putting three more up by the end of the third. Danny Espinosa also had a good night (1-4 with a home run and two RBIs), as did Ryan Zimmerman — who was 3-4, raising his season batting average to .257.

The win in Cincinnati gave starter Gio Gonzalez his fourth win of the season against one loss. Gonzalez struggled in the fifth inning and was relieved in the sixth by Craig Stammen, but the lefty was good enough to notch nine strikeouts in yet another effective outing from a Washington starter.

Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson was obviously pleased with his team’s performance at the plate: “We scored at least one every inning for the first four. I like that, but we should have kept adding on,” he said following the victory. “One step at a time. Everybody is slowly getting into gear. It was a big game for [Ryan Zimmerman]. He got three hits. We build on little successes and give them confidence, and it makes it easier.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: If you’re a Cincinnati fan and you’re not worried then there’s something wrong. The Redlegs are 3.5 back in the N.L. Central at 16-15 and just can’t seem to get on track. They’re 8-8 at home (where, at the Great American Bandbox, they should be winning) and 8-7 on the road . . .

The question is, how can a team this good (and, at least on paper, they’re really good), not be this good. A part of the problem is consistency. Johnny Cueto is having an under-the-radar stellar season, but (as Nats fans discovered last night), Mike Leake has yet to show up. Leake is 0-5 with a ballooning 7.71 ERA. Homer Bailey looks good in comparison, but his season is on the edge of a cliff. In his last outing, against the Brewers, he gave up six runs in 3.2 . . .

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Stephen Strasburg’s thirteen strike outs and Adam LaRoche’s sixth home run of the season led the Washington Nationals to a 4-2 victory over the Pirates in Pittsburgh on Thursday. The victory broke a three game losing streak, and also broke a virtual drought at the plate. The Nationals hit three home runs, and accounted for nine hits in the victory.

This was Strasburg’s third victory of the season, and he was dominant — he gave up just five hits and one earned run, and lowered his season ERA to 1.64. “He thinks he’s not throwing hard but the ball’s coming out of his hand real quick, and he’s also got a good changeup and a good curveball,” Nats’ manager Davey Johnson said after the victory. “I mean, he’s nasty.”

As important from the Nats’ perspective was Adam LaRoche’s performance. The former Pirate first baseman, regularly greeted by boos from his former home-towners, has been a major cog in the team’s offense, and Thursday night was no different. He hit his sixth home run in the sixth inning, scoring Ryan Zimmerman ahead of him. LaRoche is now hitting .327 on the year — good enough for ninth on the N.L. batting average leader board.



Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: There isn’t much doubt, is there? Davey Johnson is in charge of the ball club, and he’s going to do what he thinks is right. So far he’s shaped it to fit his philosophy, and it’s hard to argue with the results. But just to make sure there wasn’t any doubts about what he will do, he held a team meeting before yesterday’s game in Pittsburgh to express his confidence in his team . . .

Johnson allowed as how the meeting was probably more for him than for the players, but he also wanted to ease some of the pressure that comes from a lack of hitting — and mounting criticism from the blogosphere that some changes are in order. Danny Espinosa has been under particular pressure, with mounting criticism of his paltry .191 batting average . . .

“I appreciate the effort we have so far,” Johnson told the media in the meeting’s aftermath. “I don’t fall victim to the new era of tweeting, Facebook, all the comments and all the help [the fans] want to give you on how to manage a ballclub. I have confidence in everyone on this ball club. I expect us to get it right.” The pep talk seemed to help, as the Nationals then went out and scrubbed the Pirates to salvage a single game victory in the three game tilt . . .

That second sacker Danny Espinosa has been a particular target of fan doubts is not a surprise to Johnson, who admits that his young second baseman has been struggling. But it appears that he will stick with him, at least for the time being. “I had a great conversation with him,” Johnson said. “It was nothing more than ‘I will give you every opportunity to do things you are capable of. We need you.’”

Yeah. Okay. We agree. And Davey sure as hell knows a lot more about what to do on the field than anyone in the blogosphere. Then too, the philosophy of patience (a hallmark of the Rizzo-Johnson regime) has paid off so far, and far better than any of us out here in the Natmosphere predicted. So, yeah, okay . . . but . . .

And, as it turns out, the Natmosphere isn’t the only ones “stewing” about Espinosa’s league leading strike out rate, and his interstate batting average. Espinosa, as it turns out, is also stewing. “I get frustrated with it,” Espinosa admitted publicly on Thursday, “but I’m not worried about it because it’s not new territory for me. The strikeouts are high right now, but if I get hot and keep hot for the year, the strikeouts will go way down and they won’t be a problem.”

The Nationals have spent five years building a pitching rotation and bullpen, and it shows. The team is the league leader in pitching, and in nearly all pitching categories, with a front five that is the envy of every team from Philadelphia to Anaheim. But without hitting, the Nationals are fated to repeat what happened to them at PNC Park in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night: a loss fueled by lack of fuel, a defeat accompanied by whiffs and stranded runners.

Not surprisingly, and once again, the Nationals pitched well enough to win. Lefty starter Ross Detwiler threw six innings of seven hit baseball (not Whitey Ford, to be sure, but still very good), and held the Pirates to three earned. But the Nationals couldn’t keep down Andrew McCutchen, who led the Stargell’s attack, sparking a 4-2 Pittsburgh victory. The Nationals struck out eleven times, and left 10 runners stranded on base.

That Washington’s inability to score runs is a concern of the team’s management is to only state the obvious. But the hitting has been especially anemic in Pittsburgh. “We had pitches to hit, and we swing right through them,” Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson said after the loss. “I don’t know if guys are feeling too much pressure because we are having trouble generating runs. The pitcher is in the jam. Just relax. If he throws it over, hit it. Tonight was especially frustrating.”

Which is not to take away from what the Pirates — and McCutchen — did. Pittsburgh’s emerging center field star was 4-4 with two RBIs, and showed off his speed and savvy by scoring from second on an infield single in the third. He later added a home run that put the game out of reach. The Nationals will attempt to salvage a victory from the series by sending Stephen Strasburg to the hill tonight.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Don’t look now, but the New York Mets are contending for first place in the N.L East. The Mets just finished off a sweep of the hapless Phillies in New York, beating up on the Ponies last night 10-6. They’re celebrating over at Amazin’ Avenue . . .

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Pirates’ catcher Rod Barajas was greeted with boos every time that he came to the plate in Pittsburgh, but that didn’t seem to bother the light-hitting Pirates’ backstop whose bottom of the 9th walk off home run gave the Stargell’s a heart stopping victory against the Nationals, 5-4. The Barajas walk off victimized Nats’ closer Henry Rodriguez, who was one pitch away from sealing a Washington victory — which would have been their 19th of the season.

The Pirates walk off also overawed a pitchers’ duel that pitted Ahoy starter A.J. Burnett against Washington hurler Edwin Jackson. The two were both stellar in their outings, with Burnett throwing eight innings of six hit baseball, and Jackson hurling seven while holding the Pirates to three hits.

The Barajas home run came after Henry Rodriguez had difficulty in commanding his breaking ball. With Alex Presley on first, Rodriguez threw two curves for wild pitches — which put Presley on third. Rodriguez decided to stick with his fastball, which came in high in the strike zone on Barajas, who parked it in just inside the foul pole in left field. “I tried too hard, as you saw. I missed the spot. I threw wild,” Rodriguez said after the loss. “Just like that, I tried to be too perfect.”

This was the Washington closer’s second blown save of the season, and his second loss. Washington manager Davey Johnson speculated that perhaps Rodriguez needs to be used more, not less. “Maybe Henry had too much rest,” he said. “He usually has good command of his curveball, and that kind of got him in the jam. I still thought he was going to get out of it. Obviously, Barajas knows that he is going to get a fastball. He gets out in front and that’s the ballgame.”

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The Natmosphere is almost too stunned by Jayson Werth’s broken wrist to comment on it, or to speculate what it might mean for the ballclub in the weeks ahead. Instead, Washington Nationals’ blogs are focused on a growing controversy over G.M. Mike Rizzo’s call-out of Phillies lefty Cole Hamels, who plunked “the kid” right square in the back during the first inning of last night’s loss. Hamels admitted he’d hit Harper on purpose, which didn’t sit well with Rizzo — or with the D.C. Natmosphere.

Over at Federal Baseball, Rizzo’s comments headlined the day’s Nats’ news, ahead of the loss of Werth. “It was a gutless chicken [bleep] [bleeping] act,” Rizzo said. It seems to us that FB got it right: “With the emotions that ran high all weekend, the beaning, subsequent stealing of home by said 19-year old rookie, and now Rizzo’s public tirade, this rivalry — that has been for the most part one-sided through history — has been elevated to a whole new level.”

Federal Baseball quoted from the original article on Rizzo’s lambasting of Hamels, which appeared under Adam Kilgore’s byline over at WP Sports. Kilgore quotes Rizzo expansively: “Players take care of themselves,” Kilgore quoted Rizzo as saying. “I’ve never seen a more classless, gutless chicken [bleep] act in my 30 years in baseball. Cole Hamels says he’s old school? He’s the polar opposite of old school. He’s fake tough. He thinks he’s going to intimidate us after hitting our 19-year-old rookie who’s eight games into the big leagues? He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”

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There are a lot of things for you to celebrate when you find your team in first place — you can be smugly satisfied when BBTN’s Rick Sutcliffe says he’d rather have your starting rotation than the one up the road (at “the Piggy Bank“), and you can be overjoyed that, for the second day in a row, you have sent the invaders back to Philadelphia defeated.

Sutcliffe has a point: nearly thirty games into the season, the rotation of Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Detwiler and Jackson seems light years better than the once-upon-a-time best rotation in baseball of Halladay, Hamels, Worley and whoever. And today, Mike Rizzo proved once again why he’s one of the smartest G.M.’s in the game — as Gio Gonzalez shut down the Phillies line-up in leading the Nationals to a 7-1 beating of the Phillies at Nationals Parks.

Gonzalez had help from former Pony right fielder Jayson Werth, whose fifth inning home run put the Nationals ahead to stay, 4-1. Werth was near ecstasy after the game, praising the fans and telling them again that the Nationals are “something special.” Werth is clearly happy that the Nationals can not only play with the Phillies, but beat them regularly.

“We are playing good baseball, and we just want to keep that going,” Werth said. “The Phillies are banged up, we’re banged up as well, so it’s a pretty even playing field. They are the reigning NL East champs the last few years. Any time you can get a game from them, it’s good from that standpoint.”

Gonzalez was the game’s pitching star, lowering his ERA to 1.72 while earning his third win. It was undoubtedly his best outing yet: he threw seven complete in holding the Phillies to four hits and one run. Better yet, he struck out seven and only walked one. “He located pretty good,” Phillies outfielder Hunter Pence said of the Gonzalez performance. “He obviously has good stuff to have had the success he’s had. I had some pitches to hit that I just fouled off. That’s baseball. I took a good pass at him, got him one time, he pitched out of it. He has that stuff to get out of jams.”

A clutch Wilson Ramos single in the bottom of the 11th inning with the bases jammed gave the Washington Nationals a triumphant at-home walk-off win in front of nearly 35,000 at Nationals Park on Friday. The win kept the Nationals in first place in the N.L. East at 17-9, ahead of the trailing Phillies, who have struggled out of the gate.

The Nationals 4-3 win followed a back-and-forth struggle that saw a less-than-sharp Stephen Strasburg dual Phillies starter Kyle Kendrick through six innings. After trailing early, the Nationals tied the contest at three in the bottom of the eighth on a Jesus Flores double.The walk-off win was particularly welcome for a batting order that scorched the Phillies for 14 hits, but couldn’t seem to push across any runs.

The Strasburg outing struck Nationals fans as unusual, as the nose-in-the-dirt lights-out righty struggled against an anemic but, at least on this night, tenacious Phillies line-up. Strasburg et.al. (relievers Tom Gorzelanny, Craig Stammen, Henry Rodriguez, Tyler Clippard, and newbie Ryan Perry) pitched to Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz like he was Lou Gehrig.

“I left a couple of pitches up. It’s an adjustment. It was just one of those games where they made me pay for it,” Strasburg admitted. “It was just a couple of pitches. It could have gone differently, whether they decided to swing at them or not.” In fact, Strasburg left at least two pitches “up” — yielding home runs to Hunter Pence and fireplug Ruiz.

For a time in the 11th, it looked as if the Nationals were going to have to fight the Fightin’ Phils deep into the night, but the Nationals put together a mini-rally that added to their spate of 2012 one run victories (they have ten this season) — and their league leading numbers of walk-offs, which is more than any other major league team over the last two years.

The Nationals rally took place with two outs: Steve Lombardozzi singled, Bryce Harper induced a walk (after starting 0-2), Jayson Werth walked to load the bases, and pinch hitter Wilson Ramos stroked a two strike offering into center, scoring Lombardozzi with the winning run.

“You have a bigger feeling when you play the Phillies,” Nats’ manager Davey Johnson said following the game. “I felt they were the best team in baseball last year. To beat them the first time in our house, it was a big game for us. I’m sure the Phillies felt the same way, because we are sitting on top. It was fun.” The Nationals will face off against against the Phillies this afternoon at Nationals Park.

The Wisdom Of Section 1-2-9: The “Our Park” promotion seemed to work. Phillies fans were in evidence, but not in the Kasten-induced bus-huge numbers of previous years. But the real difference for the home crowd had little to do with actual numbers of the Philadelphia faithful, and a lot more to do with the Philadelphia offering on the field. These are not the Phillies of 2010 . . .

A clot of Phillies’ fans inevitably found their way to Section 1-2-9, but they were subdued. “Do you think this guy Mayberry will ever hit?” one of them was asked, when the forever-prospect pinch hit in the 8th. The answer was an admission of Philadelphia’s troubles. “We keep hoping,” the fan said. “It’s either got to be him or Dominic Brown. One of the two . . . maybe.”

There were muffled attempts to gin up a “Let’s Go Phillies” chant in right field, but it led to nothing. “Let’s see,” a Nats partisan said, “you have Pete Orr at second and Juan Pierre in left.” Another fan chimed in. “I wouldn’t have Pierre on my team . . .” But the first fan continued, ” . . . and you have Laynce Nix at first. What the hell happened?”

The question was rhetorical. What’s happened to the Phillies is injuries — to Ryan Howard and the inestimable Chase Utley. Cliff Lee is down with something-or-other, and Roy Halladay’s last outing was an embarrassment — eight earned in just over five innings. “We’re a veteran team,” the Philadelphia fan said. There was a pause, but only for a heartbeat. A Nationals fan in Row CC leaned forward, speaking for all to hear. “You’re not a veteran team,” he said. “You’re old. There’s a difference.”