All is forgiven in Boston: late on Wednesday night, the Boston Globe reported that “the Nation” had inked a contract with Tampa Bay Rays’ uber-star Carl Crawford. The Globe says that Crawford will become a Red Sox for seven years and $142 million. Outside of Cliff Lee and Jayson Werth, Crawford was the class of the 2010 free agent class, hitting .307 with 19 home runs and 47 stolen bases. The Red Sox and Crawford haven’t exactly had the best relationship; back in May of 2009 (Red Sox fans will surely remember), Crawford stole six bases on the Red Sox — in what one baseball site headlined as “Grand Theft Boston.” The Red Sox were not pleased, whining (note: the Nationals complain, the Tiants whine) that Crawford stole his sixth base unnecessarily. The one palliative that Red Sox fans can point to (now that Crawford is in the fold) is that the loudest complaint came from former Red Sox hurler Brad “Bad” Penny, a veteran of the Massachusetts Penal League. Penny, who some people describe as “a southern gentleman,” wasn’t so much ripped at Crawford’s sixth steel, as he was at his fifth — when Crawford stole third, off of . . . Penny. After the game, however, Red Sox skipper Terry Francona dampened the complaints, explaining that Crawford is really fast.

What’s really juicy about the Crawford signing is that the reporter who broke it, Peter Abraham, wrote back at the beginning of the season that if he were the Red Sox — and was given a choice between Jayson Werth and Crawford — he’d take Werth. While this doesn’t exactly relegate “the Nation” to the status of province, it sheds light on all those nasty comments made about Mike Rizzo for signing the former Phillie. The signing of Crawford should not be unexpected: it reflects Boston’s yen for getting in on the action, particularly if they feel that the dreaded pinstripers are somehow gaining on them (or are extending their furlongs, as the case may be). After all, Soxologist Peter Gammons was saying on MLB Network, just hours before the deal was reported, that the Yankees (being the Yankees) were going hard after Cliff Lee. With C.C. already in the fold, the Yanks would have to be the odds-on favorites to take the A.L. East. The Red Sox deal also eliminates the Belinskis from the Crawford sweepstakes, despite the fact that Crawford was considered a natural fit for L.A., and despite the fact that the Angels’ front office was leveraging their front-runner status by telling everyone that a Crawford-to-the-Angels deal was nearly a lock.

But for all the talk about Werth and Crawford and the Red Sox and Lee, there’s a bit of suck-in-your-stomach bad news here. The loss of Crawford, and the probable trade of starter Matt Garza, probably puts Tampa out of the running for any late season berth. And the deal highlights the struggles of mid-size and small market teams (like the Rays), who (while they might catch lightning, maybe once or twice) are eventually relegated to being development squads for the likes of Hal and Theo. Just ask Kansas City, which monopolized the other headline today: for signing all-world-average, but really cheap, Jeff Francoeur. You have to wonder: will that be tomorrow’s headline in The Kansas City Star? Here’s the latest: according to MLB Trade Rumors, Boston’s deal for Crawford won’t become official until Friday, after Crawford passes his physical.

The Washington Nationals have shocked the baseball world — signing former Phillie Jayson Werth (a top-of-the-heap free agent) to a heart-stopping and wallet-emptying seven year $126 million contract. Don’t even think about the numbers; instead, consider this: reeling from the loss of Adam Dunn and faced with an incipient fan rebellion, Mike Rizzo needed to show everyone from Atlanta’s front office to Cliff Lee and Carl Pavano’s agents that the Nationals are serious about becoming a winning franchise. Acquiring Werth will make everyone stop and think, including agents for top-of-the-rotation pitchers who mumble “forget the Nats” when they snore. This deal is expensive and there’s alot about it not to like (seven years sounds like two years too long and Werth is damn near 32), but Werth gives Washington the kind of baseball credibility that even the sainted Adam Dunn could never deliver (and should silence Ryan’s hints that the Nats coulda, shoulda, woulda and must do better). This is a guy with thirty-plus power with a .388 OBP in 2010. He’s a top-flight ballplayer signed to complement baseball’s best third baseman. He frightens pitchers.

Then there’s this: Werth is one of the most exciting players in baseball, a clutch hitting doubles machine who knows how to win, who’s played in the postseason and has a proven arm and glove — and who will be an immediate impact player even before next season’s first pitch. The Nats can start producing those Werth jerseys now — I’ll buy one, and I won’t be alone. This guy will put people in the seats. If there’s one downside it’s this: the signing of Werth will mean nothing if Rizzo doesn’t now go out and get the kind of pitcher that will make the Werth signing (ah) worth it. The team has the money to do it and the Lerners (and Rizzo) have said they’re serious about building a contender that will compete with the Ashburns, Chokes, Fish and Tomahawks. If this is the end, instead of only the beginning, then Zim and The Messiah will end up toiling alone in an empty park for a fifth place team.

In the end, it really wasn’t that much of a contest. Behind the pitching of righty ace Tim Lincecum and the long ball hitting of veteran shortstop (and series MVP) Edgar Renteria, the San Francisco Giants won the 106th Fall Classic — downing the Texas Rangers 3-1 in the fifth game of the World Series and taking the series four games to one. That the difference was pitching should not come as a surprise. The Giants rode the arms of their best pitchers, while beating Texas ace Cliff Lee twice. Giants’ starters held the hit-heavy Rangers’ line-up to an embarrassingly anemic .167 batting average, with the Rangers’ best hitters unable to unlock the Giants’ best starters. After scoring seven runs in the first game against the Giants, Texas’ bats went quiet in the Fall Classic’s final four games, scoring just five runs in the final 36 innings of the series. “As a competitor, you want to put it on yourself,” Texas third sacker Michael Young said during post-game interviews in the Rangers’ clubhouse. “They threw the ball well, but no matter who is out there, we still feel we’re capable of scoring runs. We just didn’t get it done.”

The same message was given by patch-em-up and let-em-play veteran Edgar Renteria, who manfully stop-gapped the Giants at shortstop, while providing a home run bat that had been silent nearly all season. The crafty and savvy shortstop walked away from the 106th World Series with the MVP, a much deserved reward for a player who spent the year nursing an aching neck and all sorts of tears and pulls to compile a .412 (7 for 17, two home runs, six RBIs) Fall Classic. Renteria, 34 — and in his fifteenth season — hit a three run dinger in the fifth game to notch his place in Giants’ (and baseball) history. “I got confident, looking for one pitch, and if he throws it I’m going to hit it back to the middle,” Renteria said of his home run stroke against Texas ace Cliff Lee. “So he tried to throw the cutter, and the cutter stayed in the middle, and that’s why it went out.” That Renteria would be the player at the center of the Giants’ postgame celebration seemed oddly just: a legendary franchise that boasts some of the greatest players in baseball history now has a new hero — a slap-and-run good-glove defender who plays quietly behind, argubly, the very best pitching staff in baseball. That’s what made the San Franciso Giants the Champions of the World.

Texas lefty Cliff Lee should know: Washington is a great place to settle down and raise your kids, a wonderful city filled with monuments and parks and good restaurants. As for the high cost of living, the Lerners should be able to take care of that. While free agency is still a long ways off, on Monday night in New York, Cliff Lee showed why he’s not only the premier free agent pitcher for 2011, but the best southpaw in baseball. In eight innings of work, Lee gave up just two hits, struck out 13 and held the Yankees scoreless over eight innings in hurling the Texas Rangers into a 2-1 game lead in the ALCS. “Awesome,” Texas outfielder Nelson Cruz said. “It’s unbelievable … he’s pitching at the highest level possible.” Lee threw 122 pitches, 82 of them for strikes, in taming the Yankee line-up. This was no fluke — Lee struck out Derek Jeter three times and Mark Teixeira twice and was so dominating that Rangers’ hitters were almost a sidelight. Still, the Rangers accounted for eight runs in routing the Empire, as Josh Hamilton (2-5, two RBIs) and Michael Young (3-5, .400 in the post season) showed why they’re among the most dangerous hitters in baseball. “This is one of those games you try to forget about as soon as possible,” Yankee captain Jeter said after the Texas win.

The Washington Nationals finished an American League road trip in Detroit with a loss (an 8-3 drubbing at the hands of Kaline pitcher Jeremy Bonderman), failing to win all but one game in two three-game series against the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers. The loss brought the Nats to 1-5 on the swing west but (more importantly) continued the skid of a team that was once five games over .500. The team is now officially in a tailspin, leaving puzzled Nats fans to wonder whether their Anacostia Nine are reverting to their bad habits of 2009. The final loss in Detroit pointed up the Nats’ problems: too many strike outs, poor pitching and lousy defense. “We’re not playing tight baseball right now defensively,” Nats manager Jim Riggleman admitted in the wake of the last Detroit loss. “We need to pay more attention to details.”

In many respects, the Nats 8-3 loss was typical of their recent woes. While the team put runners on base (eight hits, including an Adam Dunn dinger), they weren’t able to push across runs in tight situations — leaving 15 men stranded. Then too, while Detroit pitcher Jeremy Bonderman is a good hurler, he’s hardly a wizard. Yet, the righty regularly retired Nats hitters in situations that might have led to runs — pitching well when he had to. Bonderman mastered Nats’ hitters with a down-and-in slider that stymied the Nats line up, throwing 95 pitches over seven complete: 65 of them for strikes. Washington starter Luis Atilano was not nearly so good, giving up nine hits in just 4.1 innings — his second poor outing. For Nats’ obsessives, the game was unwatchable after the fourth. The only good news is that Adam Dunn continues his torrid pace, lofting his 16th round-tripper in the seventh, slotting two more RBIs and raising his average to .288 on the year.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: CFG’s speculations about trading for a second pitcher occasioned more than a few comments from readers. A writer from Seattle was horrified that we believe that fireball southpaw Cliff Lee “could be had for a song.” That’s not what we said. Lee can’t be had for a song, but a longer melody might do. We’ll stick by our stand: the Navigators are looking for prospects and are sellers. Lee is looking for a long term deal and would be more comfortable in the National League. The Seattle fan begs to differ: “We’ll part with Lee,” he writes, “but we’ll need Ryan Zimmerman in return.” Yeah sure. Keep dreaming.

Others wrote more creatively, noting that the Lee-Oswalt-Peavy speculations that we launched “aimed too high” (as one responder noted), saying that it seemed more likely that Washington would fish for pitchers “more reachable.” A  reader, from Atlanta, was adamant: “Houston, Seattle, Chicago — they’ll all want one of your big hitters, and Rizzo won’t give any of them up.” Well, maybe. Our regular reader from Brazil (no kidding) mentioned Chicago hurler Ted Lilly (Ken Rosenthal thinks he might be available), Frisco fireballer Jonathan Sanchez and Showboat righty Dan Haren as likely targets. We’ve been mulling these possibilities and they all sound good. But Lilly is a finesse pitcher who will soon be looking for a big payday and we can’t imagine that San Francisco would part with Sanchez (a little different than last year at this time).

There’s always Cleveland’s Jake Westbrook, who has struggled this year (except against the Nats) and is rumored to be on the block. Westbrook is an intriguing possibility, particularly now that he looked so terrible against the Mets. The Cleveland front office is running out of patience with its pitching staff, and Westbrook is playing for a guy who knows the Nats system — and particularly its younger pitchers and developing hitters. Then too, Cleveland needs to retool: getting younger hurlers to go with Masterson and Huff. Mike Rizzo wouldn’t want to do that. But for Westbrook? Westbrook is not Lilly, or Sanchez (let alone Haren), but he’s affordable and would provide a veteran presence behind Strasburg. He’s had his Tommy John surgery, has a wicked cut fastball (well . . . it’s wicked often enough to spark interest among shoppers), is in the last year of his contract and has worn out his welcome in Cleveland.

Haren is different. The D-Backs are rumored to be at the beginning of a sell-off, which has their dugout talking, though they probably don’t need a top-to-bottom rebuilding. Haren himself has said that the team has a stockpile of talent — though SI’s Jon Heyman speculates that Arizona’s front office will listen to offers on the impressive righty. Heyman’s article on the D-Backs is thorough and authoritative, which can mean only one thing: the Rattlers are open for business. The only players who are off the table (Heyman says) are outfield bopper Justin Upton and young ace-to-be Ian Kennedy. So Heyman is right — Arizona shopaholic Josh Byrnes (he just shipped Conor Jackson to Oakland) will “listen,” but will the Nats make an offer? Haren hasn’t been his perennial lights-out ace this year, but he’s been one of the most consistent performers in the NL over the last three years. So he won’t come cheap. Which is too bad, because it probably means he won’t come at all. So we’ll look in the mirror and tell ourselves what we told our Seattle reader: Keep dreaming.

While Nats bloggers have been going back-and forth about whether the team needs another bat or another arm, Mike Rizzo seems to have made up his mind. They need both. Yeah, okay — that’s the right answer. But if Rizzo was pressed (and trade bait was short), what do you think he’d really want? Given John Lannan’s continued troubles and the uncertainty surrounding the return of any number of potential starters, the answer should be obvious: not only can you can always play Roger Bernadina in right field, but you absolutely need to; we’re never going to find out whether this kid can hit unless we put him in the line-up every day. Which means that the Nats should be looking for a pitcher to supplement their front (and only) two hurlers — Stephen Strasburg and Livan Hernandez. Let’s be honest. You never know what you’re going to get with Atilano and Martin, Olsen is just too tweaky too often to be counted as a stalwart, pitching messiah Jordan Zimmermann is a ways away from rehabbing and Ross Detwiler is still an unknown. That leaves Chien-Ming Wang (who won’t be here until July) and Jason Marquis — who has yet to show the team anything. So . . .

So who’s out there?

There’s Cliff Lee, who will be available once the cratering Navigators figure out that doling out $91 million in salaries for a last place team isn’t going to cut it. Lee is in the last months of a four year deal, and the Nats would have to look to sign him longer term, but our guess is that the Mariners will happily take good prospects for him — including Triple-A pitchers and Double-A position players that have a future. The Nats have either, and both. In exchange, the Nats would get a veteran fastball pitcher who could mentor Strasburg and an absolutely lights out number two starter (number one anywhere else), who can rack up some badly needed wins. The folks in Seattle say they won’t part with Lee without getting a big time power hitter in return, but that sounds like wishful thinking. Lee isn’t going to stay in Seattle after this year, especially to anchor what promises to be a development team of young prospects and remaining big contracts. It’s an ugly but pertinent truth: the Mariners will take prospects — or they can keep Lee and try to catch the fast disappearing Belinskys, White Elephants and Whatchamacallits. They’ll make the trade — maybe Mike will too.

Then there’s Roy Oswalt, but his contract is a nightmare: just over $9 million over the rest of this season, $16 million in 2011, and $16 million in 2012 with a club option buyout of $2 million. The Nats say they have money to up their salary ceiling, but Oswalt’s price might be a little high — particularly if (as expected), the Nats would have to pick up most if not all of the salary and throw in prospects. Bottom line: he won’t be cheap. But then, there’s always Jake Peavy. Don’t laugh: the former Friar has struggled with the Pale Hose and it appears he’s losing patience with wheeling-and-dealing Kenny Williams and the perpetually enraged Ozzie the G. He recently told a reporter that he would rather be traded than go through a rebuilding process in Chicago. Translation? “Get me the hell out of here.”

It’s hard to blame him: Peavy was a part of a rebuilding process in San Diego — and the team only started to rebuild when he left. Then too, the ChiSox probably look at the Peavy trade with some remorse; they dealt prospects to San Diego, one of whom (Clayton Richard) has turned into a front line pitcher — 4-3, 2.71 ERA. That’s a damn sight better than Peavy (5-5, 5.62 ERA). Ugh. The White Sox might try the same magic, trading Peavy for pitching prospects in the hopes of striking gold. The Nats could help. Of course, Peavy sports a huge contract ($52 million, three years), a teensy bit bigger than Oswalt’s which (for paperclip counter Mark Lerner) is always a problem. But in the end (and if you carefully weigh this out), the Nats could find a rental (like Lee) for some front line prospects or they could take the longer view (which is probably what Rizzo wants) and pony up some prospects and some cash. In either case, while none of these pitchers are going to come cheap, bringing any one of them aboard right now (or in the very near future) will probably mean the difference between a club that will continue its slow-but-certain downward spiral and one that might be able to contend — and fill the seats.