The Nats Return Home. The Nationals had a chance to take the final game of a three game set from the Phish in Miami yesterday and show off their new talent. Neither happened. Newcomer Nyjer Morgan remained on the bench and highly touted lefthander Sean Burnett gave up a home run in his first appearance. The Nats woes continued: poor fielding, quiet bats in clutch situations and a pathetic showing from the bullpen. The Nats are now “oh-fer” in their last ten outings against the Marlins. Time to get out of Miami. The Nats woes might well be reaching into the team’s psyche: otherwise steady third sacker Ryan Zimmerman has registered three errors over the last two games, Anderson Hernandez’s bat has gone silent, Nick Johnson’s BA has plummeted, Adam Dunn’s goal of hitting over .300 for the year now seems a fantasy. The front office is scrambling to deal with the continuing crisis, sending Elijah Dukes to triple-A, and talks about dealing some of the team’s major parts is heating up, with Nick Johnson apparently being targeted by the Chokes. The only good news to come out of Florida, it seems, was the continued stellar showing of first year talent Jordan Zimmermann, who went six innings and threw 100 pitches, 74 for strikes.

Down On Half Street: Nats Park should fill up this weekend for a series against the Chops – the weather will be good and its the July 4th weekend. Which brings me back to those early season “Baseball Tonight” predictions that Nats attendance would continue to plummet. That hasn’t happened. The Nats now stand 24th in attendance (true: hardly something to brag about), but are within easy reach of K.C., San Diego and the O’s. The team finished 19th in attendance last year and if they finish out of the bottom ten (with the worst record in the majors) it will be evidence that baseball can thrive in Washington. And Tim Kurkjian-and-crew can eat their words . . . I can’t quite get past this talk that the Nats are going to trade John Willingham. What for? A rightfielder who can hit? He is a rightfielder who can hit. Not everything can be solved by trading away your best players . . .

Speaking of eating crow: I am not preparing to eat crow over my early season prediction that the Baby Bears (aka, “the North Side Drama Queens”) would finish first in the NL Central, despite the  fact that Lou-and-crew have apparently decided that they can lose as well with minor league players as they can with stars hitting .230. Sam Fuld started in left field last night against the Ahoys and the Cubs best pitcher is . . . Randy Wells, a lifetime triple-A hurler. Randy Wells? Who the hell is Randy Wells? The Cubs are acting more like a passle of whining kids than a ballclub. Lou went after Milton Bradley for his poor performance (more precisely, he called him “a piece of . . .”), beat writers have called for the unconditional release of Carlos Zambrano (no kidding), and Aramis Ramirez continues to nurse a dislocated shoulder. But I will eat crow on Jason Marquis. I couldn’t wait for the Cubs to get rid of him. And so they did. He’s now 10-5 with a 3.87 ERA for the resurgent Rockies and pitching like he’s Ferguson Jenkins. This must seem like sweet justice for Marquis, who blistered the Cubs for not having any confidence in him . . . in this, at least, the Cubs can best the Nats — the troubles the Baby Bears are having are from the neck up. Lou actually looked deadpan into a WGN camera last week (during a pathetic 6-0 pasting at the hands of the Pale Hose) and shrugged his shoulders. But last night, finally, he seemed reengaged. The camera caught him expressing his view of the third base ump (“fat f — k”) and, one inning later, a poor call at first brought him headlong out of the Cubs dugout. He was immediately tossed, redfaced. About time.