Jordan Zimmerman was finally rewarded for pitching a good game, as the Nationals’ righty shut down the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Nationals toughed out thirteen hits and went on to defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix, 6-1. Zimmermann, now 3-6, held the D-Backs to six hits and single run, commanding the strike zone and striking out four in seven complete innings of work. The Nationals have now won three in a row.

Zimmermann was not the only Nat on fire: Michael Morse continued his hot hitting streak by going 4-5 and raising his average to a torrid .319. But Zimmermann was the story of the night: “When I needed a double play, I got the double play,” Zimmermann said of the win. “It was a little bit of a battle for me tonight. It might not look like it. There were guys on in the middle of the game. I had to really make some pitches. I made the pitches when I needed to make them and worked out of it.”

The win marked one of the Nationals’ best efforts of the year — a combination of great pitching, dominant hitting and great defense. Morse seems to have settled in at first base, where he saved Zimmermann from tough innings with two great plays. Jayson Werth also got to three sinking liners in right field, keeping the Snakes off the bases and pacing the game. The Nationals win defanged the surging D-Backs, who fell back to within a half game of the top the N.L. West.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The San Francisco Giants are breathing easier. The N.L. West’s hitless wonders broke out for eleven hits and 12 runs in downing the St. Louis Cardinals, 12-7. As important was the fact that the struggling Aubrey Huff registered three homes runs — a nearly unheard of total for a player who has looked confused at the plate. Huff”s struggles might not be over: he’s hitting just .233 and the McCoveys, now in first place in the West, are 13th in the N.L. in hitting.

The Giants have been struggling: last week they were swept at home by the Marlins, then promptly lost two of three to the Brewers. The injury to catcher Buster Posey gave the clubhouse that sinking feeling and the team was struggling, even though they had put in a good month, registering impressive wins against the Dodgers and A’s. The Giants’ quiet bats seem to have awakened in St. Louis, as the team has scratched out impressive 7-3, 7-5 and (now) 12-7 wins. There are only two teams standing now in the N.L. West — the Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

It was only a matter of time, we suppose, before the Posey collision became a matter of controversy. Deemed a “clean hit” by nearly every baseball commenter, San Francisco G.M. Brian Sabean issued a different judgment yesterday. Sabean said that the hit at the plate by Florida’s Scott Cousins was “unnecessary” and “premeditated.” Cousins apologized for the hit (though we’ll be damned if we know why), but Posey has refused to respond.

Sabean called the lack of a response from Posey “hard nosed,” but refused to say the same thing about Cousins: “If I never hear from Cousins again or he never plays another game in the big leagues, I think we’ll all be happy,” Sabean said. That makes it official — Brian Sabean is still the jerk we all knew him to be. Here’s the full interview (and it’s worth listening to). Cousins says he’s received death threats, presumably from Giants’ fans. Sabean’s interview, which should have made the situation better, has made it worse.

Baseball Tonight had a “debate” about Buster Posey’s injury that went something like this: given Posey’s value to the team (a terrific hitter, the growing face of the franchise, a good clubhouse presence — and young), wouldn’t it be better to put him in the outfield, where his chances of a major injury are greatly diminished? After all, that’s what the Nationals have done with Bryce Harper and, arguably, what the Twinkies will now do with oft-injured Joe Mauer.

The question is hardly academic: if Posey was in the outfield, he wouldn’t be laying in the hospital nursing a broken leg and shredded muscles. And think of this: Posey is just a good hitter or even just a good player, he’s the best player that the Giants have. Now he could be out for a year, and there’s no guarantee his rehab will be as smooth as it should be.

But there are a number of problems with the debate, not the least is that while the question comes up when a guy like Posey is injured, it hardly comes up at all when a player like (say) Jesus Flores is injured. The reason for that is obvious: Jesus Flores is simply not as valuable as Posey and can (but don’t tell the Nats), be replaced more readily. But that begs the question: is it okay for Jesus Flores to be injured, but not Buster Posey. Should Bruce Bochy, for instance, tell Posey replacement Eli Whiteside that it’s okay for him to be behind the place, because he’s not that valuable.

Maybe BBTN (a program that is valuable in itself, and much better than MLB Network’s nightly hysteria) is just trying to fill time. For Rick Sutcliffe, the question seemed rhetorical: a catcher is the only player on the field who’s involved in all parts of the game — “pitching, catching and offense.” If your team’s best player is a catcher (as is the case with Posey — in San Francisco) that’s where you want him, regardless of the chance of injury. So Posey’s in the hospital, and the Giants are scrambling.

As the debate about whether Posey should have been behind the plate rages simmers on, McCovey fans will continue to shake their heads and mutter, “if only, if only.” Yeah, “if only” — if only Roberto had not been on the aircraft, if only Mickey hadn’t stepped in that rubber drain and if only Bob Feller had played a full career, instead of going to fight the war. But then, of course, there’s this: Feller emerged from the war unscathed — and was only injured after he returned.

After a so-so 2010 campaign, the Chicago Cubs didn’t want Tom Gorzelanny. “No,” the Cubs said. “No, no, no, a thousand times no.” The Cubs had bigger plans: they needed a star to supplement their budget cutbacks and had their eye on Matt Garza in Tampa. So off Tommy went as a part of a trade to the Nationals — for three prospects. The Nationals were happy to have him: they had missed out on the big fish free agents of the off-season, wanted a solid eatings inning lefty in their rotation and . . . and, well, Gorzelanny was available.

As it turned out, the trade for Gorzelanny might have been the best off-season move that Nats’ G.M. Mike Rizzo made. The evidence came at Nationals Park last night, as Gorzelanny dominated the world champion San Francisco Giants, throwing an eight inning shutout in downing the sinking McCoveys, 2-0. Gorzelanny mixed his pitches well, inducing seven groundouts and eleven flyouts, throwing 95 pitches, 62 of them for strikes. If Gorzelanny was the key to the win, the Nats’ defense was a close second; the Anacostia Nine showed off their stellar leather, with diving snags from Jerry Hairston and Rick Ankiel. Closer Drew Storen closed out the game, with his sixth save in six attempts.

Hard luck lefty Madison Bumgarner also threw well, extremely well — as the contest was a pitchers’ duel into the bottom of the 7th. Bumgarner, who came into the game sporting an atmospheric ERA, threw seven innings of four hit baseball (the Nats were hitless through four), but came up with the loss. The young lefty is now 0-5. “Both pitchers were outstanding tonight and we finally got a little break,” Nationals manager Jim Riggleman said following the game. “Guys were taking some hits away from each club. Gorzelanny was just outstanding. It was just a great performance and I’m really happy with the way he threw.”

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: The Nats tribute to the military on Monday night was filled with the usual out-of-town gaggle of rooters, including a young woman sporting a black t-shirt emblazoned with the words “Posey For President.” Buster has become a kind of fetish in San Francisco (which is, after all, a city of fetishes). A 1-2-9 wag called her on it: “Who’s Posey?” he asked. She was puzzled, but only for a heartbeat, then smiled . . . “so where ya from?” a fan asked her. “From Marin County,” she said. She said that she and her father were in town for the four game set, but would then head to New York to see the Giants play the Mets. “I’ve never been to New York,” she said. The fan smiled: “lucky you.”

“The Giants just look awful,” a Nats fan said. “They’re just not the same team as last year, really struggling.” There was this explanation: “They miss Uribe, and Rentaria. They were sparks. Who do they have this year? Tejada? Give me a break. They’ll get tired of him. He won’t last past the all star break.” The anti-Giants in the section were on left fielder Pat Burrell all night. “He’s always angry,” a Nats fan said. “Always swearing, tossing his bat. They probably love it in the clubhouse, but he’s a jerk.” Indeed, that’s Burrell’s reputation — ever since he roamed the outfield for the Phillies. “We don’t have to see him as much,” another fan added. “And that’s a good thing.”

A third fan chimed in, gesturing at a scoreboard graphic showing Aubrey Huff hitting just.190. “Get a load of these guys,” he said, “they can’t it worth a damn.” The silence that followed was finally interrupted by a Giants fan sporting an orange shirt: “Yeah,” he said, “and neither can you.”

The Philadelphia Phillies face elimination tonight in the NLCS, as the Ponies dropped a nine inning thriller in San Francisco, 6-5. While Juan Uribe is credited with the walk off sacrifice fly that won the game, Buster Posey (4-5, two RBIs and .313 in the playoffs) was the San Francisco hero — unless, of course, you credit the lack of production of the Phillies (2 for 22 with runners in scoring position) and their more-than-average bullpen for the loss. The Phillies are now bitten with the same bug that plagued them throughout the season: they go for long stretches without being able to muster key hits or runs, counting on their front line pitching to carry them through the tough games. Then too, Philadelphia’s less-than-vaunted bullpen was, er — less than vaunted: Chad Durbin’s post-season ERA now reads 18.00. Oh The Humanity: a team that spent seven months looking for runs is outhitting and outscoring a team that is (or was) an offensive machine.

Fans of the Ponies are starting to lose hope — and for good reason. While Roy Halladay starts tonight against Tim Lincecum, it’s more than possible that the holder of two no hitters over the last seven months will go down as the loser in two playoff games in the same year; it will be the first time that has happened in MLB history. But even if Halladay pitches brilliantly, the Phillies will have to win two more. Sweeping the Giants the rest of the way (which is what the Phils will have to do to win) isn’t impossible, but given Philadelphia’s Great Collapsing Bullpen (Madson is unhittable, but he’s the only one), top-of-the-order famine (Victorino’s hitting .200, Utley an embarrassing .133), and swing-from-the-heels habits (11 strikeouts yesterday, three hits and seven Ks against Cain), that seems unlikely. Even Jayson Werth, the key to the Phillies’ attack (.250 in four games, two left on base last night), is stuck in neutral. This is a real deal, this-looks-like-July, Phillies’ slump.

Phillies’ fans agree — things don’t look good. Phillies Nation called Wednesday’s tilt “the most heart wrenching loss” of the season, The Good Phight described the loss as “a game of bullpen catastrophes large and small,” Beerleaguer said that the game represented a “cavalcade of carelessness,” while Fightin Phillies viewed Charlie Manuel’s decision to bring Roy Oswalt in to pitch the 9th as sure evidence that the manager has lost faith in Brad Lidge. “We just have to win now,” Phils shortstop Jimmy Rollins says. “We’ve got good pitchers. They can shut teams down. We’ve seen them shut teams down, especially when times get tough. They seem to get better. I think we’re going to get their best.” That’s right. But after Wednesday’s loss it’s an open question whether Philadelphia’s best will be good enough.

The hitting of Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez and the stellas pitching of John Lannan paced the Washington Nationals to a 9-2 victory over the Pirates at PNC Park on Saturday. Rodriguez led the Nats’ fifteen hit attack, with an opposite field home run, while John Lannan pitched seven complete — giving up only five hits. It was his best outing of the year and solidified his place in the rotation for 2011. “Pudge and I did a great job just mixing it up on both sides of the plate,” Lannan said after the game. “I threw some [four-seam fastballs] inside to righties and some [two-seam fastballs] into lefties. I had my changeup working again, and that’s been the pitch I’ve gone to if I was getting behind hitters. It kept them off-balance a little bit. You get a little more comfortable out there when your team puts up that many runs.”

Desmond Makes His Case: Washington Nationals’ rookie shortstop Ian Desmond is making a strong case for being considered as the N.L.’s premier rookie. But two obstacles stand in his way — he makes too many errors (31! — including two last night), and the competition is stiff. The early betting was that Atlanta’s Jason Heyward would win the award, and for a time it looked like he would. Heyward set the baseball world chattering through April and May, but his production fell off through the summer. Still: .282 with 16 home runs (and he’s only 20) could find him shoehorned into the top spot. The betting now seems to be that Buster Posey will get the nod — despite the fact that he started the season late. Tim Dierkes over at MLB Trade Rumors posted a list in April that included all of the good guesses, which included Heyward and Desmond, as well as Florida’s Gaby Sanchez, San Francisco’s Buster Posey, Chicago’s Starlin Castro, Pittsburgh’s Pedro Alvarez, Washington’s Drew Storen (and Stephen Strasburg), and Cincinnati’s Mike Leake. That leaves out Cubbie Tyler Colvin, who’s having a tremendous year — he’s stroked 19 home runs.

You can make a strong case for Desmond, who has raised his batting average over the last month from the so-so mid-.260s to .287 — an unforeseen spike that, if it continues, could see the 24-year-old ending the season near .300. And Desmond has unpredicted power, line-driving nine home runs. That number could easily increase in 2011. Desmond’s long-ball potential is a plus for the Nats, who would gladly take a .280 batting average with a handful of home runs each year — but 20? 25? Desmond says that he patterns his play on the model provided by Empire glove man Derek Jeter and his numbers show it. While Jeter seems to be struggling for homers as he ages, the pinstriper once hit 24, a number well within reach of his younger apprentice. But Jeter’s value is his day-in-and-day-out crusade in the middle of the Yankees infield, his ability to play virtually injury free and his steady glove-work. Ah, and he has a .314 lifetime BA — which Desmond might find difficult to equal. Desmond is right to emulate his hero, but he has a long way to go to reach his level (cutting down on the errors would be the way to start). It’s the fielding stats that will likely doom Desmond in any final voting for the Jackie Robinson Award, which means that Giants workhorse Buster Posey will get the nod. It’s hard to argue with that choice — with a .328 batting average, he deserves it.

Just one year ago, in 2009, the Washington Nationals opened the second half of their season not only in last place in the NL East, but as the worst team in baseball. The problems then were obvious: the bullpen had imploded, regular outfielder Austin Kearns was slumping, there was no starting pitching and the team seemed uninvolved and detached. The challenge then was different than it is now: to change what was happening on the field, the Nats needed to change what was happening in the front office — a view reflected in ownership’s mid season open letter to fans that contained an embarrassing, but necessary apology. No such apology is needed now. While the Nats are yet again in last place in their division, the rebuilt bullpen is solid, Austin Kearns (DHL’d to Cleveland) has been replaced in the outfield by slugger Josh Willingham, the team’s starting rotation is filled with promise and the clubhouse is tight and optimistic. But perhaps the biggest revolution has been where the fans can’t see it: the front office is retooled — with an engaged general manager and a core of scouts and development experts who are competing with the best in baseball.

The challenges facing the 2009 Nats were obvious, the needed changes reflected in the standings. That’s less true now, particularly considering that the franchise controls one of the game’s premier young pitchers (Stephen Strasburg), has one of the most formidable 3-4-5 line-up combinations in the National League (Zimmerman, Dunn, Willingham), is steadied by a future hall of famer behind the plate (“Pudge” Rodriguez), and has — waiting in the wings — a crowd of injured starting pitchers that could energize a second half surge (Jason Marquis, Jordan Zimmermann, Scott Olsen and Chien-Ming Wang). Which is not to say that there aren’t problems. There are. The Nats defense is weak, the team’s set-up men are struggling, their center fielder is having problems on the base paths (and at the plate) and (pending the uncertain return of a quartet of tweeky arms) their starting pitching is shaky.

In 2009, these same problems (and their hypothetical resolution) spurred overly optimistic talk; that the Nationals were actually “only a player or two” from being good. That wasn’t true in 2009 — not even close, but it’s true now. The question for Mike Rizzo is whether he busts up a good thing to continue building, or whether he tweaks the team at the edges, hoping that the return of the Marquis-Zimmermann-Olsen-Wang quartet will provide the necessary spur to vault the team out of last place. It’s not an easy decision: busting up the team means trading popular and productive players (Dunn or Willingham, or both), while tweaking it at the edges probably (probably) means accepting that the Nats future is not now, but sometime next year. If there’s good news here, it’s this: Nats fans won’t have to wait until August or September to determine the team’s fate — that tale will be told before the July 31 trading deadline.

The Wisdom Of Secton 1-2-9: The CFG contingent arrived at the first game of the McCovey series with a new set of fans seated firmly in the row behind the regulars. That the two (I swear) looked like the spitting image of Omar Little and Stringer Bell was tempting: “hey, you two were great in The Wire.” The moment, thankfully, passed. The two turned out to be charter members of the Nyjer Morgan fan club, pumping their fists at every Nyjer moment: “My man,” one said, when Nyjer came to the plate. A row mate was not impressed, mimicking Casey At The Bat — “strike two said the umpire” and then the smile “not my style said Nyjer.” There were titters. When Morgan flipped his bat in disgust at a strike out served up by Matt Cain, the potential for a debate seemed electric, but one of the Morgan partisans smiled:  “You’ll see,” he said, to no one in particular. And he was right: Morgan was 2-5 and knocked in a run. “Hey man,” one of the Morgan fans said, but so we could hear it, “some of these fans don’t remember what Nyjer did for us last year.” His row mate nodded in agreement. “Yeah man, I know. Short memories.” This was greeted by silence. And chagrin. They were relentless, boring in for the kill. One of them tapped me on the shoulder: “That was a rope,” he said, after Morgan put a streaking line drive down the right field line. Okay, okay, okay . . .

“The problem with Clippard is that his curve just isn’t working,” one of the section’s middle relief experts opined in the second game of the San Francisco series. He didn’t need to keep making the point, Clippard was making it for him — “see, look at that.” Clippard looked terrible and shook his head as he came off the field. “He feels it,” and then there was just a tick before this, from a fan down the row: “Yeah, well, he should.” But the section remained optimistic (“he’ll get it back”), even as the Nats squandered a seemingly insurmountable lead (“yeah, but not this inning”). There were some few Giants fans in the seats, complete with newly minted, black and orange, Buster Posey jerseys. One Frisco fan (“San Francisco natives never use that term,” I was told) was tweeting with a family member, even as the Nats compiled a five runs lead. The message was pointed: “My boy Posey will regulate!” He did: 4-5 with 3 RBIs.