The Washington Nationals outhit, outpitched, outran and outscored the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2 on Friday night in one of the best showings from the team in weeks. Livan Hernandez was the major story for the Nationals: the aging righty not only threw 6.2 innings of four hit ball, he went 2-3 at the plate and drove in two runs.

Hernandez was nearly flawless in his outing against Philadelphia — after three rough outings in a row (against the Rockies, Braves and Marlins). Livo threw only 89 pitches, but 51 of them were strikes, as his curve and slider baffled Philadelphia hitters, including traditional Nats’ swatters Hunter Pence and Raul Ibanez, who were a combined 1-6. Tyler Clippard notched his 30th hold, while Drew Storen registered his 31st save.

Hernandez admitted that, in his previous outings, his curveball was, as he said, “all over the place.” That wasn’t true on Friday. “Tonight, the curveball was working perfectly,” Hernandez said after the victory. “I felt really good. In Colorado, it’s a little difficult for a pitcher like me to throw the curveball and slider. I felt really good today. Everything was working perfectly.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano was ejected from Friday night’s game against the Braves after throwing at Chipper Jones . . . twice. Following his ejection, Zambrano cleared out his locker and said that he was retiring. Those close to Zambrano say that he was undoubtedly embarrassed by the incident — but that it would be difficult, given his previous behavior, for the Cubs to welcome him back. G.M. Jim Hendry blew Zambrano a good-bye kiss: ‘‘We will respect his wishes and honor them,’’ Hendry said, ‘‘and move forward.’’

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This was a Hail Mary pass if ever there was one. When Mike Rizzo signed Chien-Ming Wang back in February of 2010, there was absolutely no reason to believe that he would someday once again pitch in the majors. Wang was then rehabbing from right shoulder surgery, but it was worse than that: his shoulder was shredded. It was thought then that he could pitch by May of that year: it took him another fourteen months, an extended rehab assignment in the minors and two lousy outings.

But “the Michael Jordan of Taiwan” (as Rizzo described him then), is apparently now all the way back, though baseball gurus say that his shoulder still hurts when he throws a slider. Never mind: he only needs his sinker, as he proved against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday, throwing six complete innings while giving up only a single hit. Wang’s outing (and homers by Michael Morse and Jonny Gomes) allowed the Nats to best the Cubs at Wrigley Field, 3-1.

Wang was the story of the night. The righty threw 81 pitches, 53 of them for strikes. More importantly, his sinker was working. The former Yankee Cy Young candidate registered eleven groundouts, issued only two walks and struck out one. Unlike his first two outings with the Washington Nine, he was never really in danger.

The return of Wang might be the best late-season news the Nationals have ever had — he symbolizes another solid arm in the mix for 2012 (is there really any question he’ll return?), that will include Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann and John Lannan. A Strasburg-Zimmermann-Lannan-Wang rotation (if all are healthy) would give Washington one of the best front fours in the game. The Nationals must be ecstatic: “Real nice job. Outstanding,” pitching coach Steve McCatty said.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The North Side Drama Queens are in the middle of a revival of sorts. Prior to Tuesday’s loss to the Nationals, the Cubs had won seven in a row, including a sweep of the Pirates. Don’t let that fool you, the streak only provided hope where little exists . . .

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Washington and the Rockies rapped out 33 hits in scoring 22 runs on Saturday — but the Heltons were just too powerful and downed the Nationals, 15-7. This was a poor outing for Livan Hernandez (now 6-11 on the year) who gave up nine hits and seven runs in just 3.2 innings.

The big bats of Colorado showed up in force: Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki were a combined 5-8, while normally light hitting catcher Chris Iannetta was 4-5. The Nationals bullpen was also ineffective. Tom Gorzelanny, Todd Coffey, Sean Burnett and Henry Rodriguez gave up a combined ten hits in 4.2 innings of work.

The Nationals fought back in the top of the sixth, scoring four runs to bring the game to within three, at 10-7. It was the only strong point of the Washington showing. “I was really pleased with the team,” skipper Davey Johnson said, after the loss. “We battled back and scored a bunch of runs with two outs, and that was a good sign. Stuff like that happens here.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Cincinnati Reds were swept by the Mets at the end of July, but then took three of three from the Giants — a sure sign the team was still in the thick of the N.L. Central race. But since then the Redlegs have tanked. They dropped two of three from the Astros and have now dropped two in a row to the Cubs . . .

They look awful. Yesterday in Chicago (which has a seven game winning streak, though no one knows exactly why), Dusty Baker’s boys were eaten by Carlos Zambrano, who gave up six hits in six innings and homered off Johnny Cueto in the second inning. Zambrano (whose homer was a straight-away-to-center shot), is now 9-6 . . . Cueto couldn’t make it out of the fourth . . .

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Wilson Ramos missed a sign in the seventh inning on Wednesday, hitting away while Michael Morse sprinted down the third base line on a called squeeze play. Ramos realized what was happening just in time, fouled off the pitch, then walked up the third base line to consult with third base coach Bo Porter. After taking the next pitch, Ramos got it right — laying down a perfect bunt to score Morse and secure yet another one run victory (a 5-4 win), their third in a row against the cratering Cubs.

Calling for a second squeeze after a blown first one is risky. Which is why Davey Johnson figured the Cubs wouldn’t be ready. “You look at the situation, and all the components actually work to our favor,” Porter said after the victory. “You have a guy who doesn’t run as well at the plate. You have a guy who doesn’t run that well at third base and you don’t really want to send him on contact. And in all of my years of baseball, I’ve always said this: Catchers are normally the best bunters.”

The Nationals win tied them with the New York Mets in the N.L. East and put them two games over .500. But three other story lines emerged on Wednesday: Ryan Zimmerman finally seemed to get on track (3-4, with two RBIs and his fourth homer), the Nats’ line-up busted out for 13 hits (Bernadina, Morse and Ramos had two each), and the Nationals’ bullpen once again came through in the late innings: Ryan Mattheus, Henry Rodriguez and Drew Storen combined to hold the Slugs to one hit and no runs — standard work for a unit that keeps the team in games and the Nats in the win column.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Cubbie fans are beside themselves with worry. Bleed Cubbie Blue points out that the North Side Drama Queens are 5-26 when they allow opponents to score in the first inning — which they have done in all three of their losses against the Nationals . . .

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You had to see last night’s Cubs game versus the Reds to believe it – or maybe not. Twenty-four hours after Cubs manager Mike Quade had a closed door meeting to chew on his team for their lax play, the Cubs came out and handed the game to their opponents, committing four errors in a 7-5 loss in Cincinnati. And so the North Side Drama Queens are at it again: playing shoddy baseball and taking each other apart in public. “The harping was done last night,” Cubs manager Quade said after the embarrassing loss, “and I guess Knute Rockne I’m not.”

Last night’s game was only typical, in a “let’s watch the tsunami” kind of way. With the Cubs ahead 5-3 in the eighth and Kerry Wood on the mound, the Reds put on a rush: Cincy third sacker Scott Rolen doubled and Fred Lewis followed with an infield single. Wood has been in these kinds of situations before, so no worries — right? But when Wood fielded a Ryan Hanigan single, he threw wide of third, with the ball racing down the left field line. Two runs scored. Wood shook his head. Quade shook his head. And Cubs fans buried their faces in their hands. Pinch-hitter Chris Heisey then added a run on a sacrifice fly and Joey Votto added a double for another run. And that was that.

The same kind of thing happened in the bottom of the fourth, when first baseman Carlos Pena missed a ground ball, which was retrieved by second baseman Darwin Barney, who then threw the ball to Cubs’ starter Mat Garza covering first. Garza threw the ball home to catch a runner. But Garza’s ball was “a little off line” — and ended up in the camera well as the band struck up Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite. “The ball just slipped,” Garza said. Cincy fans, soaked and standing in the fog, couldn’t believe their good fortune. They should know better.

The Cubs, who are headed into Boston for the first time in 90-plus years (we have gained permission to attend from our corporate chairperson — and here she is), are unraveling before their fans’ eyes. Alfonso Soriano is leading the way. While Soriano is hitting the leather off the ball (11 home runs), his play in left field has come to define the team: when he’s not lying on his back and watching the ball go over his head (which he did last week), he’s throwing it to the wrong base — or trotting after it indifferently. To say he lacks hustle is an understatement — he doesn’t seem to care.

Last night, Cincinnati announcers were all over him — and Cubs’ G.M. Jim Hendry: “You know,” Fox Sport Ohio broadcaster Thom Brennaman said, “you look at this team and you look at the size of their payroll and it just doesn’t make sense. I mean, who in their right mind would pay some $130 million or more for this team?” That’s right: the Cubs are paying Soriano $14 million to play poorly, are ponying up $13.5 to Kosuke Fukudome –whom they have no intention of keeping — and are in up to their necks with Carlos Zambrano, who will earn (we use the term loosely) $17.8 million this year and $18 million next year. But that’s not the worst of it.

The Cubs have been diligently developing young talent, but apparently haven’t made a commitment to letting them play. Their best young hitter and outfielder is Tyler Colvin, who was sent down the other day to get playing time at Triple-A. The Cubs think it’s more important to play Fukudome, or Reed Johnson or Pena than Colvin — who might be one of the best young prospects in the game. None of them have a future with the team. Colvin does. The move nearly set off riots on the North Side, and now the fan clamor is growing for Quade’s public execution. The only real player of note in this entire crew is Starlin Castro, who is one of the best young shortstops in baseball — and seems to want to win. But you rarely hear that from Quade, who is more interested in defending his big salary players — which leads Cubs fans to think it’ll be more than a few years before they see some fresh new young faces on the North Side.

The word in Wrigleyville is that it was a mistake to hire Quade, when they could have hired Cubs’ Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, who is more than ready. Everyone, but everyone says Quade is the problem, including Bleacher Report, which blistered the manager for playing favorites among a cast of mediocre players who told Hendry they wanted him (and not Sandberg) as their manager. “What this comes down to is that he is in over his head as the manager of this team,” the BT correspondent wrote. “He thinks things out too much before making out the lineup each day, and over manages to make up for his lack of managerial know-how.” Will the Cubs retrench? Will Hendry recognize the error of his ways, fire Quade and hire disciplinarian Sandberg? Will he? Huh? Will he . . . will he . . . will he? Nahhhhhh . . . but you can be sure that if he did, that would be the day that Soriano watched the game from the bench, and Tyler Colvin started.

Adam Kennedy’s bases clearing double in the ninth inning wasn’t enough to bring the Nats back from a 5-1 deficit, as the Chicago Cubs, behind the strong pitching of starter Carlos Zambrano, stymied a Nationals’ rally to win at Nationals Park on Tuesday night, 5-4. Kennedy’s clutch hit preceded a long drive off the bat of Ryan Zimmerman to account for the third out and end the game. Zimmerman’s long fly (on an outside corner fastball from Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol) brought the crowd to their feet, with visions of another Zimmerman miracle, but right fielder Kosuke Fukudome reached up at the last moment to snag the headed-for-the wall game tying drive. “I thought it had a shot to get over Fukudome’s head. It was a good at-bat against a tough pitcher,” Zimmerman said after the almost-but-not-quite hit. “He is not an easy guy to get hits off of. He [Marmol] strikes out everyone pretty much. It was a good job to battle back and have a chance to win.” The loss brought the Nationals to twenty games under .500 — their worst record of the year.

If there were ever any doubts that starting pitching makes a huge difference in a team’s success, that doubt was put to rest during Washington’s recent three game visit to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. The Phillies “book-ended” the Nats by throwing two of baseball’s best starting pitchers against them, and taking two of three games from the still struggling Anacostia Nine. The one Nats win might have been predicted, as it came against Phillies’ hurler Kyle Kendrick (a young high-ERA righty who is still learning his trade), while the Nats’ losses came against two of the game’s best starters: Roy “Doc” Halladay (in a 1-0 squeaker on Friday) and Roy Oswalt — in a 6-0 blowout on Sunday. The Nats might have won on Friday, with successive runners in scoring position, but Halladay was the difference — lowering his ERA to 2.16 in seven innings of steady if unspectacular work — but the issue was never in doubt on Sunday, when Roy Oswalt sliced and diced the Nats line-up through seven innings of brilliant work.

And the Chicago Cubs? (If you have the music for 2001: A Space Odyssey, you might consider putting it on now.)

The Chicago Cubs are an entirely different story. The North Side Drama Queens, who open a series against the Nationals on Half Street on Monday night, have no one to compare with either Halladay or Oswalt — and the standings show it. The rotation that carried the Cubs into the post-season in 2008 is now past its prime, and the Chicago front office knows it. The once effective Carlos Zambrano (14-6 in 2008) is battling his anger as much as opposing batters, Ted Lilly has been shipped off to L.A. for a passel of minor league wannabes, Jason Marquis was rendered to Colorado (and then signed as a free agent here in D.C.), and Rich Harden (beset by arm problems) is struggling in Texas. The only appendage of note belongs to Ryan Dempster who, now into his mid-30s, is the staff “ace” — which means he’s won more than ten games. That Dempster stands out at all is due more to his rotation mates: a gaggle of Fisher-Price kids who look like they’d be more comfortable on the dance floor of the 9:30 Club than on the mound in Wrigleyville.

Chicago’s one young hurler of note is Randy Wells, a surprise-surprise arm who was drafted by the Slugs as a catcher in the 38th round of the 2002 amateur draft. Wells came to the show in 2009 as a fill-in for the then-injured Zambrano and pitched himself into a regular spot in the Chicago rotation — yielding a jaw-dropping 12-10 record. Tom Gorzelanny is the Cubs’ lefty, a former Buc who has had his tires recapped in Chicago after one good year in Pittsburgh. Gorzelanny “has battled injuries and inconsistency” — a Zen-like phrase for Cubs fans. Dempster, Wells and Gorzelanny are hardly the Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance of the future Chicago rotation, but the Cubs have high hopes for rookie Casey Coleman, a young righty whose grandfather (Joe) and father (Joe) were both major leaguers. But let’s not get all gooey: Coleman (who will pitch against the Nationals tonight) is not only untried and untested, he’s been lit-up in the 12 innings he’s pitched.

That leaves Thomas Diamond, a former Texas Ranger fast-track product sidetracked by Tommy John surgery in 2007 (at least he’s gotten that out of the way), who’s “all up-side,” which means he doesn’t have a clue. The bottom line? While there’s no guarantee the Nats will have an easier time against the Cubs than they did against the Phillies, there will be no Halladay or Oswalt trooping to the mound to face them. The Phillies have built an elite staff. They are birds of prey. And the Cubs? The Cubs are crippled sparrows — they’re starting over.

Photos: Roy Oswalt (AP/H. Rumph Jr). Randy Wells (AP/Nam Y. Huh)