If you watched Tim Kurkjian last night on ESPN, then you know just how close he came to an on-air myocardial infarction. In the history of the game, he said, what viewers just saw was history — the best night of baseball ever of any regular season. The best, as he repeated, in 200,000 games. In fact, he’s right — it might well have been.

Unless, of course, you’re a fan of either the Boston Red Sox or Atlanta Braves. For both of those clubs, and their fans, the “night to remember” was a belly-up sinking that compared with the loss of the “unsinkable” Titanic: it just wasn’t supposed to happen. Fans will focus on the Red Sox, of course, but down in Atlanta the despair was as keenly felt. You only have so many shots at this, and this may be one of the Braves’ last.

“When you’re in a slump as a team, you find a bunch of different ways to lose,” third baseman Chipper Jones said after the Bravos dropped a nail biter to the Phillies. “Bats go silent. You get wild on the mound. You walk in runs. You find different ways to lose and we sure did over the past couple weeks.”

Okay. But still — the most improbable of improbables was not the Braves loss to Philadelphia (let alone the Redbirds whitewashing of the Astros), or even the fact that somehow the Tampa Bay Rays came back to take a 12 inning victory from the Yankees, but Baltimore’s epic ninth inning walk off victory against the Nation. “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” the unsinkable Molly Brown said as she saw the Titanic go down, stern first.

And that’s what we all said, last night, when Robert Andino put a Jonathan Papelbon offering just off the glove of Carl Crawford in left field to score Noland Reimold and give the Orioles (the Orioles!) a walk-off 4-3 win in Baltimore. There’s a reason why fans keep their mouths shut when they’re watching a no-hitter in the ninth, just as there’s a reason why you don’t pitch Tim Wakefield eight times in the middle of a divisional race just so he can get his 200th win. (What the hell were they thinking?)

Here’s some other things you don’t ever do, no matter what. You don’t calculate that you have an inside shot just because the Rays are playing the Yankees, you don’t headline that you have “the best team ever” at the beginning of a season, you don’t describe the Iraqi insurgents as “pushovers” — and you don’t call a ship unsinkable when it’s sitting in Belfast Harbor: you don’t flirt with icebergs.

So . . . so don’t rewrite the rules. They remain, the rules. You don’t tempt fate, which is what the Red Sox did all of September, and it’s what they did last night. It’s call hubris, and it’s been around since Homer. “I’m pretty shocked,” Red Sox arm John Lester said. “Not only with the Rays game, but in our game, we’ve got the best closer in baseball. That stuff doesn’t happen to him.” Oh, c’mon. Sure it does.  This is baseball.

John Lannan seemed sharp on Friday, retiring the first ten Rockies he faced before two straight singles in the fourth inning from Jonathan Herrera and Todd Helton put two runners on and brought Ty Wigginton to the plate. Unfortuntely for Lannan — and for the Nationals — Wigginton hit a screamer off of Lannan’s left cheek, sending the young lefty to the clubhouse with a nasal contusion (it could’ve been worse) and the Nationals into a funk.

Wigginton’s single scored Herrera and eventually Helton and Wigginton also scored, which is all the Colorado Rockies’ would need for a three run lead, and a 3-2 win against the Nationals before nearly 20,000 at Nationals Park. With Lannan out of the game, Davey Johnson was forced into his bullpen — long before he wanted to use any of his relievers.

As Washington has done most recently, Colorado won ugly. Relieving Lannan, Ryan Mattheus balked Helton home and then gave up a single to rookie Cole Garner. “I was put in a big spot there, and those are the spots I want to be in,” Mattheus said. “It got away from me tonight.” The good news for the Nats was that Lannan appeared to be none the worse for taking the Wigginton rifle shot off his face, and Wilson Ramos continued his hot hitting: notching a solo home run in the fourth.

Fight Night In Boston: The big secret (or not) at Center Field Gate is that the majority of our contributors (and here they are, all bundled up for that wicked cold Boston weather) are fans of “The Nation” (gag), and are inclined to side with their Beantown Boys if given even half a chance. That’s true, but with this caveat: they’re Boston fans in their spare time — when they’re not absolutely head-over-heels monkey nuts over their (and your) Washington Nationals.

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The qualities that have made the Nationals one of the hottest teams in baseball failed them on Sunday afternoon, as the Washington Nine dropped the last in their three game series against the Orioles, 7-4 at Nationals Park. Returning starting pitcher Tom Gorzelanny was shaky in pitching just 4.2 innings (he gave up ten hits and four runs), the Washington bullpen was just so-so (Collin Ballester appeared, but didn’t impress), and — perhaps most worrisome — the Nationals committed three errors.

The disturbing reversion to form, however, seems more like a hiccup that a talisman of future performance: Ryan Zimmerman is back in the line-up, Michael Morse has claimed first base as his own, and it’s likely the strong-up-the-middle Nationals will remain so. “It’s a long season, and you’re going to have a couple games where you play terrible defensively,” third sacker Ryan Zimmerman said after the loss. “The thing is you just have to learn and realize that’s why you lost the game. When we won all those games in a row, it was because we were playing good defense and doing the little things right.”

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: It’s been three weeks since reports surfaced that the Nationals were inquiring about Houston outfielder Michael Bourn, but Nats fans are still talking about it. The consensus, at least in 1-2-9, is that the the inquiry is evidence that the team doesn’t realize what it has in Roger Bernadina. “Rizzo and crew have the solution to their lead-off and centerfield problem right in front of his eyes,” a 1-2-9 regular said on Friday. “They’ve got to give this guy a clear shot. He’s getting better every day.” There wasn’t much disagreement, even as 1-2-9′ers agreed on Bourn’s talents.

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Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse both homered, and righty youngster Jordan Zimmermann pitched effectively into the sixth inning to lead the Washington Nationals to their eighth straight victory with a 4-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles at Nationals Park on Saturday. The victory continued a streak that began in San Diego and included a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Nationals are on fire and are now one of baseball’s hottest teams.

Saturday afternoon’s victory gave Nationals’ fans more of the same. The triumph featured a strong starting pitching performance (Zimmermann admitted that he didn’t have his best stuff — but it was good enough to baffle the O’s), the Nationals were able to hit the long ball (Michael Morse’s homer in the bottom of the sixth put the Nats on top to stay), and the team’s bullpen came through once again: Henry Rodriguez registered the hold, and Drew Storen notched his seventeenth save.

“It was hard work for him today,” Nats’ catcher Ivan Rodriguez said of Zimmermann’s outing. “He got behind in the count — ball one, ball two — but that’s how good he is. He can come back and challenge everybody with the fastball. He did good. For the way he was today, to fight and fight and fight to get his mechanics back on track, he did a tremendous job.” While Zimmermann might not have had his best stuff, the sign of a pitcher who has “arrived,” is that they are able to win without it.

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When the Nationals can’t pitch, they can’t hit — and when they can’t hit, they can’t pitch. But when they do both, they still need the ball to bounce the right way, and that hasn’t been happening lately. With their game knotted at four on Sunday, the Anacostia Nine simply needed to get out of the 9th and win it in the bottom of the inning, but a squibber off the bat of Ryan Ludwick and past a diving Ian Desmond scored Jorge Cantu to give the San Diego Padres a 5-4 win.

Was there any good news? If you think that a win is the best and only news there can be, then “no,” there wasn’t. But at least the Nationals began to hit, with Jayson Werth going 3-4 and Michael Morse continuing with his hot hitting. But Drew Storen, who has been struggling of late, was saddled with the loss — although reliever Tyler Clippard seemed to emerge from his late inning doldrums to register two innings of one hit ball. The jury is still out on Yunesky Maya, meanwhile, as the Cuban defector (who was called up from Syracuse) started strong, but then faded in the 5th.

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: The Nationals are now 5-11 in one run games, and still have to find a way to win the close ones. And there’s grumbling amongst Nationals fans, who wonder whether the team’s skipper is so enamored of speed and the hit and run that he runs the Nationals out of some games. The groans along the first base line were audible on Saturday, as fans grumbled when Michael Morse was caught stealing with Jerry Hairston at the plate and Matt Stairs on the deck. “He just ran us out of the game,” a Nats’ ticket holder groused . . .

There was a lot of talk amongst season ticket holders about Jayson Werth’s comments earlier this week. “He said his comments weren’t aimed at Riggleman, but I don’t buy it,” a regular in Row BB commented. “Ah, he’s just frustrated,” a fan responded. “He’s always been that way.” Another fan, a visitor from New York, chimed in: “Well, Bobby’s available.” This brought puzzled looks and a response: “Valentine? Forget about it. If you think Werth is angry now, just wait until Valentine gets here. Rizz [Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo] will never give up on Riggleman.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Josh Willingham says he loves it in Oakland, where he’s become the centerpiece of the White Elephant’s all-pitch, no-hit franchise. But Willingham hasn’t exactly been hitting the cover off the ball, which is why the Athletics got him to begin with — he’s hitting .238 and been reaching for pitches out of the zone. Playing in Oakland’s “Coliseum” might have something to do with it: in most ballparks a ball will get lost in the lights; in Oakland, a ball gets lost in the darkness. And the fences are far, far away: out where the California National Guard patrols.

But Oakland is playing good baseball and getting good pitching, which has taken the pressure off the struggling Willingham. The good news is that when Oakland doesn’t get the stellar pitching they’re used to, Willingham has a habit of putting a ball back where no one can get it. As he did this afternoon against the Orioles, parking a heater from uber rookie Zach Britton in the left field seats.

The Connie Macks went on to win, 6-4 and sweep the suddenly struggling Orioles. The A’s are worth watching; they lead the A.L. in ERA and a lurking close enough to the top of the A.L. West to make the Gunslingers and Belinskys sweat. The A’s never seem to run out of pitching: today they started Guillermo Moscoso. Oh come on, you remember Guillermo Moscoso — right? No? Well, join the club.

After Friday’s 17-5 runaway victory in Baltimore, the Washington Nationals were confident that their season-long slump was at an end — and that with their bats finally loosened (and their defense and pitching solid), the close wins that had eluded them for so long would start coming their way. There was nothing in Saturday’s 8-3 loss that dissuaded them from that, despite the team’s paltry seven hits.

But with Sunday’s disappointing 2-1 defeat, the result of a single shaky Jordan Zimmermann inning, the Nats might begin to think that even hitting well won’t help. The Nationals outhit the O’s in Baltimore on Sunday afternoon (8-4), and arguably outpitched them (Zimmermann was superb, actually), but the Nationals could not respond to a Vlad Guerrero dinger — which proved the difference in the game. While the Nationals came out of their interleague games versus the O’s with two losses, they weren’t outplayed by them; but it was a frustrating experience that has put the team four games under .500.

Aside from the 17 runs scored on Friday, it’s clear the team needs to find a way to generate offense. “It’s more of the same,” Nats’ manager Jim Riggleman said following the loss. “I’m glad we got baserunners out there. That’s better than not having them out there, but we are just not getting them in. That’s too bad, because we got another good pitching performance.” The Nationals now head to Milwaukee, where they’ll face the Brewers in three tough games: the Brewers have started to click, and are coming off a three game sweep of the Rockies.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Our readers (here they are) have been calling and writing — wondering whatever happened to our reporting on the Cubs-Red Sox series. And you know what? . . .  it’s a damn good question. But our board of directors decided that, after getting in late (“ladies and gentlemen, we have an unexpected delay . . . and will be here in Bridgeport for a few minutes”), we’ve decided the save the entry until tomorrow . . . er, later today.

That said, we would like to assure everyone that our team of writers (here they are) had a terrific time in Beantown, visiting the city’s most famous sites: traipsing through the Old North Church Yawkey Way, gawking at Lexington Green the Green Monster, and cramming ourselves full of Boston’s Fenway’s famous clam chowdah sausage and beer.

Oh, and the Cubs and Red Sox played three, and we were thrilled upset about the astonishing perfectly predictable results. Nothing we saw changed what we believed — the Cubs are a young and exciting old and interesting embarrassing team, while Red Sox Nation (gack!) is finally on track to contend with the Yanks and Rays.

You can’t blame Nationals fans for celebrating: after two embarrassing shutout losses in New York, the Nationals rapped out nineteen hits and scored 17 runs in a badly needed win against their rival Orioles. Danny Espinosa was the team’s heaviest hitter, going 3-4 and notching five RBIs. The Nats’ power surge also included home runs by Jayson Werth (who had two), Roger Bernadina, Laynce Nix, Wilson Ramos — and of course Espinosa. That’s six Nationals’ home runs in one game, something that Nationals fans never see.

Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter was philosophical about the loss: “I think it was probably a given they were going to hit better as the season progresses. It’s just unfortunate it was against us.” That was probably news for Nats’ fans, who have been increasingly critical of the anemic line-up and wondering when things were going to change. But Friday’s game was a sign that perhaps the Nationals have gotten on track. Jayson Werth seems to think so: “I think everybody knows we have been struggling with the bats and not getting hits,” he said in the visitor’s clubhouse following the win. “It has been a long time coming. We have a good team. Hopefully we can build on this and keep going.”

Unfortunately for Washington, starter Jason Marquis didn’t stay in the game long enough to profit from the Nats’ outburst. The Nationals’ righty, who has returned to the form he showed for the Colorado Rockies’ in 2009, was pulled by Nats’ manager Jim Riggleman after four — and was damned mad about it, showing his emotion in the dugout after he was lifted. Riggleman said he’d never seen Marquis so angry. Marquis shrugged off the incident: “I want to be out on the field, battling out there with the teammates,” he said. “It’s a one-game thing. So I’m going to go out there, do my work like I always do, prepare for the fifth day, take that ball and be ready to get a W.”

But the story of the game was the Nationals at the plate: the 17 runs were a Nationals record, and nearly every slumping player contributed: Ian Desmond was 2-6, Wilson Ramos was 3-4 and Jayson Werth brought his batting average to .247. And despite the lifting of Jason Marquis (he simply looked ineffective), the Nationals got a solid three innings performance from maybe-he-can-hit-the-strike-zone after all Henry Rodriguez.

The other piece of good news (though it’s almost, dare we say, predictable now) is the Nationals were perfect in the field. Which is pretty good commentary on the game: when the team puts it altogether, they look almost (almost) unbeatable.