The headline on the Washington Nationals’ website is all about John Lannan, and how he struggles against the Philadelphia Phillies. But the story on Saturday night, when the Nationals were dumped by the Ponies (by an it-wasn’t-even-close 5-to-zip score) had little to do with Lannan — and an awful lot to do with Roy Oswalt.

Oswalt, who’s suffered through a 2011 campaign with a bad back, was at his best on Saturday, scattering eight hits over eight innings while shutting out a Nationals’ team that couldn’t put together any kind of offense. Oswalt’s outing was good news for the Phillies, who will depend on their starters in the post-season. “He’s back,” Phellow Phil Cole Hamels said. “I think that’s pretty much it. He’s back. When he has the velocity, you know it’s game time.” The only threat against Oswalt came from Ryan Zimmerman, who was 3-4 and continued his rocket-like ascent into the top tier of N.L. hitters.

Facing off against Oswalt, Lannan was just average — which wasn’t nearly good enough. The Nationals lefty, who has compiled a good season (8-9 with a 3.61 ERA), couldn’t keep the heavy hitting Phillies off the base paths. That said, his five inning three earned run outing deserved better, as the team played poorly behind him. The resulting loss came at the hands of Wilson Valdez, whose triple scored two and Hunter Pence, who parked one in the left field bleachers.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Nationals packed the ballpark on Saturday (setting a single game attendance record), as busloads of Phillies’ fans came down from the north to root for their best-record nine. The Nationals are 22nd in attendance this year, which isn’t all that bad when you consider their record. The Nationals have put people in the stands at a much better clip than other (better), teams . . . including the Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Rays and Indians . . .

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If you’re going to score four runs off of Tim Lincecum — no matter how much he might be struggling — you take it and head for the dugout with a win. Right? The Nationals had Lincecum on the ropes on Monday night, but the Washington relief corps couldn’t put the game away, and the Giants won in 13 innings, 5-4.

The most recent Nats’ problem has been with their bullpen, as Monday’s starter John Lannan provided a solid outing — perhaps the best of his career. Lannan held the Giants to four hits over seven innings and the offense came through, with Michael Morse providing the big power, then providing his own timely hitting to put the Anacostia Nine up by 4-1 heading into the 8th. That’s when the Nationals bullpen decided to implode.

The eighth inning was a nightmare: the Giants notched, in order, a single, a double, a single, a single and a single. None of the balls were particularly hard hit, but the hard luck Nationals could not keep the Giants at bay. The primary victim was Sean Burnett, who pitched well, but could not keep a bleeder from Aubrey Huff dropping in front of Jayson Werth along the line in right field. It seemed as if this was just “one of those games,” except that the Nationals have been unable to recently hold leads, but have often been able to escape the danger — as they did in Arizona on Sunday.

Sean Burnett was emotional on the mound after giving up the Huff single, as if he couldn’t believe that the ball actually dropped in: “You make good pitches. He hit it where they weren’t,” Burnett said after the loss. “It’s frustrating. You’ve just got to keep pitching. Hopefully your luck changes. I feel like I’m throwing the ball well, but I’ve got nothing to show for it.”

The denouement came at about 3 am Washington time, when San Francisco faced off against semi-Newbie Craig Stammen, who gave up a walk to Chris Stewart and a single to Andres Torres, before Freddy Sanchez put a single down the right field line to score Stewart and win the game.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Giants of 2011 look a lot like the Giants of 2010 — they win one run games, they’re tough at home, they depend on hitting with runners in scoring position, they have a crew of tough starters, and a lights-out closer . . . which is to say, they are built for the playoffs. Their missing piece might well be Juan Uribe, a spark plug that they now wish they’d re-signed . . .

Kiss It Goodbye? Arrogance in a baseball player isn’t always a bad thing, but the game has a way of beating it out of you. Harper blew a kiss (here tis, folks) to Greensboro Grasshoppers pitcher Zachary Neal after hitting a homer off of him — apparently his 14th of the year. Mike Rizzo and Jim Riggleman might have something to say about it, if his manager at Hagerstown hasn’t already made it clear . . . it would be interesting to see if he’d ever do it against a guy like, say, Roy Halladay or, better yet — Carlos Zambrano . . . well, he’s not here yet, so there’s time . . . Mike Schmidt had a bit to say about this, and well said: “Tone it down and play the game.”

It’s always a pleasure listening to MASN analyst Ray Knight, and while he’s no F.P What’s-His-Name, his blunt talk is a welcome tonic to the “here’s what he’s throwing” cliches of most baseball announcers. “I mean, good golly,”  Knight said in the bottom of the 5th inning in Phoenix last night, “you can’t stay in this league if you’re going to walk the pitcher.”

The “good golly” comment followed an inning in which the Diamondbacks scored three runs on Yunesky Maya, leading to his departure from the game — and putting the Snakes in line for a 4-0 victory. Maya later confirmed Knight’s judgment, saying that his fifth inning stint was the key to the game: “When you walk the pitcher, a lot of things are going to happen.” Maya said, a comment that had followed his promise to “do better next time.” Right. If there is a next time.

The key for the Diamondbacks was the pitching of Josh Collmenter, a no-name rookie who has stymied N.L. bats. Last night the Nationals couldn’t touch him, racking up a measly three hits against the righty over seven innings. That was about ten hits fewer than they needed against a soft-touch righty with a ring-the-bell change-up and a knee-bending curve. “Getting back to basics, that’s the key to my game, is being able to spot the fastball and work the off-speed stuff off that — especially against these guys,” Collmenter said after the win. “They’re a pretty aggressive lineup, if you can get them to make outs early on off your pitches. Then you can have success.” Maya should take notes.

Where Have You Gone Ryan Zimmerman, Nats Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes To You: Ryan Zimmerman will make a rehab start with the Hagerstown Suns on Sunday, teaming up with uber-prospect Bryce Harper. Hitting in the same line-up as Harper should be entertaining, as the Nationals await Zimmerman’s return (scheduled for the next homestand, in mid-June) with anticipation. Harper is dominating in “low” Single-A, hitting .340 with 13 home runs.

Federal Baseball reminds us that Zimmerman started his career in Hagerstown, playing four games there after being selected fourth overall in 2005. Zimmerman was then promoted to Double-A Harrisburg, where he played 63 games before being called up to the big club. Hey, can’t you remember that summer of 2005. When the big club promoted Zimmerman, people screamed: “No, no, no. Don’t rush this kid, we don’t need him.” But the Nats’ front office waved off the complaints, saying that even though he’d only had a half-a-season in the minors, he had mastered the strike zone.

Well, the Nationals have learned their lesson. They’re going to bring Harper along slowly, because you never know: he could turn out just like Zimmerman. So we don’t want to rush Harper: the club is doing just fine without him. And what’s a hit here or there? Then too, Mike Rizzo says that he wants Harper to be “100 percent comfortable” before he brings him to the big league: unlike with Zim, who took at least a couple of weeks before he was “100 percent comfortable” with being the Nationals best hitter.

After all of this time, and despite their uneven press, you have to give this to the owners of the Washington Nationals: they’ve apparently realized that they’re going to have to pay for talent. This wasn’t always so obvious: in the early days after the franchise moved from Montreal to D.C., the Lerners were castigated for their penny-rubbing paperclip-counting ways, as it became gut-wrenchingly clear that the moguls that owned the Nats were as concerned with the bottom line as they were with the team’s place in the standings. Or more so. Articles slamming the Penny Pinchers reached a crescendo in mid-2009, corresponding to both the team’s status as baseball’s worst team and the franchise’s continued woeful performance at the gate.

But things have turned around for the real estate developing dynasty over the last twelve months, the result of two events that took place on exactly the same day — and nearly at the same moment — exactly twelve months apart. Just minutes before the signing deadline for the MLB first year player draft in 2009, and just minutes before the closing of the same signing period in 2010, the Lerners shelled out uber millions of dollars to the most-talked-about young players in major league history: first-round-first-pick Stephen Strasburg and first-round-first-pick outfielder Bryce Harper. We’ll start with Strasburg, who was signed for four years and $15.1 million, the largest contract ever given a player out of the draft. And yesterday, just before midnight, the Nats signed Bryce Harper to a five year deal worth $9.9 million. That’s a lot of money for two players who, prior to their signing, had never played a major league game. But the Lerners signed the checks — for an exact total of $25 million.

It’s hard to argue that the Lerners have learned that (as they would be the first to testify) good investments yield good returns. The investment in Strasburg, for instance, has started to pay for itself — with an estimated additional $5 million increase in revenue in 2010 ticket sales alone. Then too, the sale of Strasburg jerseys has ensured additional revenue; it has been the bestselling baseball jersey this summer and outpaced the sale of any Nats jersey from any player — ever. It’s not much of a guess to speculate that Strasburg will now have some competition, as Harper jerseys (when they arrive), will rival anything “the kid” has sold. So it’s no secret: putting fans in the seats and eyeballs in front of a MASN broadcast will make the Lerner family financially healthy (or, rather, more financially healthy) than they were when the bought the franchise from baseball five years ago.

But let’s not kid ourselves: despite all the talk among baseball owners about how the game is really “a public trust,” it’s much more of a business — with success measured not simply by a team’s place in the standings, but by a franchise’s financial health. Players win games, but profits (big profits) make signing good players possible. Finding the right balance between the two, between investments and returns, is the key to all of this, though it’s only sometimes mastered. It’s hard to wrestle this equation into submission for small and medium market  baseball owners, though much less difficult in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. But it’s possible. The relationship between investments and returns has been mastered in Minnesota (as an example), but not in Pittsburgh, in San Diego, but not in Kansas City. And in Washington?

The D.C. market is the ninth largest in the country (that’s twice the size of Pittsburgh), with a potentially large television audience and a fan base that would be the envy of Minnesota, Pittsburgh or K.C. But in the first years of their tenure as owners, the Lerners acted as if the team was playing in Boise — they cut the payroll and trimmed away what they viewed as marginal baseball operations. If there was a plan here, it didn’t work: after the two year honeymoon with the team wore off, team attendance plummeted nearly at the same rate as team wins. In 2007, the Nats were paying out a mere $37 million in player salaries, an embarrassing amount of cash for what is essentially a large market team. But the Lerners must have gotten the message, which was hard to miss: Nats fans started voting with their feet. They stayed home. The result is that the team’s payroll level has increased in each of the last three years, to nearly $55 million in 2008, $60 million in 2009 and $66 million in 2010. The Harper signing is yet another indication that Mark Lerner is going to keep his promise: that “spending money is not gonna be our issue.” Great. Good. Now then, we need only one more piece of evidence . . .

The Washington Nationals took the second in a three game set against the Pirates on Wednesday, though the 7-5 victory was much less cleanly played than the previous night’s 5-2 drubbing. Still, a victory is a victory, and the sloppily played triumph will enter the win column — and lift the Nats to within two games of .500 with one game left to play against the Stargells. The victory was also a vindication (of sorts), for Nats manager Jim Riggleman, who has praised rookie right fielder Roger Bernadina. Bernadina was 3-4 on the night and his speed on the base paths seemed to energize the Nats Nine. “He’s a very talented guy,” Riggleman told the Post back in May. “If you run him out there enough, he’s going to do some damage, because he’s just that good of a player.”

The Nationals were also sparked by a perfect bullpen, as Tyler Walker, Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard and Matt Capps combined to sink the Pirates through 4.1 innings of two hit, no-run ball. Tyler Walker’s outing was key, as the former journeyman Metropolitan, Giant and Phillie has struggled of late. “It was a bullpen shutout. That’s what we were looking for,” Walker said after the win. “We came in and picked up Johnny [Lannan]. He didn’t have his best stuff tonight. You come in and you want to pick him up. You want to help out your teammates. Tonight, I was able to get that job done. I had been struggling in that situation lately — [with] inherited runners. I was really trying to bear down and get us off the field, so we could get back to hitting.” Walker’s outing brought his ERA to back under four, while Storen (1.74) and Clippard (1.57) continued to impress.

Those Little Town Blues: Our friends over at The Real Dirty Mets Blog are getting fat and sassy, in the belief that the Mets are showing that they are some kind of team. (Haven’t they learned? C’mon guys — you’ll only be disappointed . . .) Most recently, “Mr. North Jersey” did some kind of throw down (is that what it’s called now?) in CFG after the Strasburg outing — to the effect that “don’t expect my Mets to go easy on you; we will be out for blood.” Well, let me tell you — we’re terrified. No really. We are. I mean, Strasburg, Lannan, Hernandez et.al are pretty good, but there’s not a one of them as good as Oliver Perez . . .  Our constant desire to become an entry in The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary has led us far afield in the past. It didn’t seem that any Nats qualified as throwing, fielding or hitting in any particularly unique manner for us to even nominate a word or phrase. But now, with Stephen “they call me Mr.” Strasburg having plied his D.C. wares, we think we’ve come up with something. The heater that Strasburg threw against Andy LaRoche on Tuesday (his last K) seems to qualify. It was both unique and spectacularly Strasburg — ian. The Strasburg pitch was up-in-the-zone at 97-plus and absolutely unhittable. We’ll call it “a Porky Pig fastball” — and see if that catches on . . . No? . . .

“I mean, I don’t get it,” one of CFG’s droogs said last night. “The Ahoys? That’s what you call the Pirates?” Okay, we admit, it’s corny, but we’ll take reader nominations for nicknames and we’ll use them too. If they’re any good. We call the Mets “the Apples,” having dropped “the chokes” as being, well … offensive. But, while we call them “the apples” we don’t particularly like that nickname — or even “the Metropolitans.” It seems . . . ah . . . antiquated. So. Have you got something better? Well, send it in. And we’ll use it. But we’ll stick by “the Trolleys” (for the Dodgers) and McCoveys for the Giants and we’ll also stick with the Belinskys for the Angels (after legendary Halo pitcher Bo Belinsky) and, come to think of it, the uniquely descriptive “White Elephants” (c’mon, you know, for the Athletics) is an absolute keeper. But, admittedly, we’re having trouble coming up with a nickname for the Rockies. “The Heltons” is just too easy. And we’re having trouble labeling the Brewers. The “Brew Crew?” C’mon. I mean, who the hell cares? So nominations are open . . .

Guess who’s cashing in? Why, that would be the Topps baseball card company (well, they’re in business, so a little cash is probably not inappropriate), which has issued a limited edition set of cards of Stephen Strasburg, showing him pitching in Tuesday night’s debut. The limited edition has a very short print run, to ensure card value, and shows his first pitch. Right. That “other” card company — Bowman — will not be outdone. It has announced that it is producing a limited number of Bryce Harper cards. The Topps limited edition Strasburg card is pricey (and popular), although Topps has announced it will add a card to its 2010 660-card set (#661) for collectors who purchase a boxed set . . .

Over at the Custom Card Blog, a whole raft of photo shop experts and baseball fanatics spend at least some of their time creating cards of current stars — and phenoms — using old time Topps cards as models for new sets. The 1968 Topps “tribute” design shown above (and presented last October) is accompanied by this description: “If the Nationals get the first overall pick in 2010 and can draft and sign Bryce Harper, they would have two of the most coveted prospects in all of baseball with Stephen Strasburg and Harper.” Well, the Nats have got them — with Stephen Strasburg making his major league debut tonight, and Bryce Harper now taking a few weeks of rest while Scott Boras determines how much money the kid will bank. It’s possible, in fact it’s likely, that both players are over-hyped: Strasburg is mentioned in the same sentence as Walter Johnson (and Larry Benard “Ben” McDonald), while a YouTube video shows Harper hitting a 502-foot homer off the back of the dome in Tampa. These guys are “the real deal” — they “can’t miss.”

Unless, of course, they do.

The best pitcher I ever saw was a straight-up 6-0 fastball farmboy from central Wisconsin who threw about 94-95 — and no one wanted to face him. The White Sox signed him, sent him to college and then farmed him out to the Midwest League and the American Association. He didn’t dominate, but he had electric stuff. He appeared in the majors and was traded to the Cubs (with a couple of other prospects, for — get this — Ron Santo), where he reportedly threw out his arm. He was “untouchable” — until he faced big league hitters. The best hitter I ever saw (up close) was a high school kid who was once intentionally walked, with the bases loaded, because allowing him to hit was just too dangerous. He was drafted by the Marlins and ended up in Beloit (again, in the Midwest League). The rumor that circulated ever after is that, following his first stint in the batting cage (during which he lofted several flies into the farm fields beyond the center field wall, wherein grazed the requisite number of Holsteins) a Marlins batting instructor told him: “We have to teach you how to hit.” He blew out his knee.

This is the way your career ends, this is the way your career ends: not with a bang, but with a pop — of a shoulder, knee, elbow, ankle, hamstring or heel, with an arm slot that just isn’t right, with a tweeky wrist or tender oblique, with a pulled groin, or broken tibia, fibula or rib. With a cracked, snapped, torn or shredded muscle that doctors replace with other muscles from other places. But even if your career doesn’t end that way there’s this: the stuff between your ears may betray you — or, in odd but legendary cases, make you better than you really are. Scott Sanderson had nothing compared to Stephen Strasburg, but there are pitchers who would have killed for his career. “I couldn’t throw a curve in a hurricane,” Sanderson once told Tim McCarver. You could have fooled the Phillies: whom he owned. And there have been much, much better players than Mark McLemore — who hit just .259 in his career. He’d be lucky if he hit five homers in a season, let alone a single dinger that could even wink at what Harper has done. But McLemore made $20 million hitting the ball between short and third and he played for 19 years. Who wouldn’t take that?

The Nats have drafted Bryce Harper, perhaps the best pure hitter in the first year player draft since the Yankees drafted Derek Jeter (with the fifth pick for God’s sake), and they will sign him. His journey will undoubtedly start somewhere in Florida, after which he’ll head to Arizona and then on to (I would guess) Double-A Harrisburg. Stephen Strasburg’s journey as a major league pitcher will start tonight. We can expect that he’ll overthrow the first time out, before settling down. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll show tonight that he’s the phenom that everyone says he is — or perhaps the Pirates will hit him around. But it won’t matter either way: baseball is a marathon (not a sprint) and is filled with so many oddities and potholes (with so many unpredicted cracks and snaps and tears and pulls) that it will matter less what Strasburg does tonight than what he does three months from now, and three years from now. And my guess is that, given his enormous talent, his ultimate success will depend less on the “stuff” that he pumps towards the plate than the “stuff” between his ears. Tell me I’m wrong.

The Washington Nationals dropped an ten inning contest to the Cincinnati Reds 5-4 on Sunday, losing two of three to the surging Concepcions. The Nats have now lost ten of their last fourteen and have dropped to four games under .500. The Sunday loss was particularly painful, as usually reliable Nats reliever Matt Capps dropped a winnable save in the ninth, while Doug Slaten gave up two unnecessary singles in the tenth to provide an exclamation to the collapse. Nats starter Craig Stammen pitched well, hurling six-and-two-thirds innings, while allowing one run. But Stammen’s effort was not enough to save his job with the big club: after the game he was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse to make room for Stephen Strasburg, who will start on Tuesday against the Pirates.

Stammen was philosophical about his demotion. “The proof is in the pudding. I knew I was kind of one of the guys in line for [the demotion],” he said after hearing the news. “I haven’t been very consistent and it’s just the way it is. To pitch in the big leagues, you can’t really worry about if you are going to get sent down or staying or going or eating cheese for lunch. You have to be able to get guys out.” It has been known for some time that Strasburg’s arrival would mean the demotion of someone in the starting rotation — and the decision came down to one between Stammen, J.D. Martin or Luis Atilano. Outside of Stammen, the continuing big story of the Nats is the inability of Matt Capps to get out of the ninth with a win. Once again on Sunday, Capps found himself in a save situation that he couldn’t complete. Capps entered the contest with one out in the ninth, but gave up successive doubles to account for the blown save, his fourth of the year. “I don’t know what to say. I wasn’t very good,” Capps said following the contest.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Bill Ladson has the Nats “leaning” towards drafting big bat catcher/outfielder Bryce Harper with the first pick in today’s first year player draft. While Harper is only 17, his bat is so good that he’s become the prohibitive favorite — and has been called “the greatest amateur player of all time.” So, as most Nats blogs agree, Harper is the pick: Nationals Farm Authority (who are good at predicting these kinds of things) says that Harper is “a lead pipe cinch,” while detailing the top ten prospects in the lottery. Meanwhile, back on June 3, Nationals Enquirer published a video of Harper’s ejection from a recent junior college game. The rap on Harper has been that he has a bad attitude, but the report seems more rumor than fact. Then too, if being ejected from a game were cause to question a person’s character, there wouldn’t be many draftees eligible. Even so, over at Capital Punishment they’re worried about the attitude question and meticulously rework worries about Harper’s swing. CP says that Harper is no “sure thing.” Too true.