Ahead Of The Mets In The N.L. East: The Washington Nationals scrubbed the New York Madoffs at Citi Field this afternoon, 10-1 — thereby notching a four game sweep of their division rivals. The win featured a pitching gem from rookie September call-up Tom Milone, and a 5-6 day at the plate from shortstop Ian Desmond. This was the first sweep of a four game series by the Nationals since they swept the Braves in four games in 2009.

Milone’s first win of the year was well-deserved. The young lefty gave up just three hits in 5.2 innings, while striking out four. “I think he had everything working for him,” Nats’ manager Davey Johnson said after the victory. “He had them all messed up. They were talking to themselves. He jammed a lot of guys, who missed by a mile. It was a really fun game to watch. He was totally in command.”

Desmond, meanwhile, moved his batting average into the respectable range — an improvement of some thirty points since the All Star break. Desmond gives Davey Johnson credit for turning him around: the manager said that Desmond has enough power not to attempt to hit everything to right field, and now Desmond is pulling the ball more. “Everybody has been able to give me good advice,” Desmond said following his 5-6 outing. “I’ve been able to take the things that are successful and disregard the things that aren’t and go from there.”

The Nationals scored in the fifth, seventh and eighth innings, but they piled it on in the 9th, which began with yet another fielding error by David Wright (his 19th of the year) to lead off the inning. Danny Espinosa doubled, Chris Marrero followed with a sacrifice fly (that scored a run), Wilson Ramos scored Espinosa, Roger Bernadina singled, and Ian Desmond doubled — scoring two. In all, the Nationals scored four runs in the ninth.

Rookie September call-up Steve Lombardozzi’s hit in the top of the 7th inning — his first hit of the season — scored Brian Bixler and led the Nationals to a 3-2 win against the Mets in New York. Lombardozzi, who started the game at second base for Danny Espinosa, was 0-15 before his clutch single. The Mets had tied the score in the bottom of the 6th, driving starter Ross Dewiler from the game.

The Lombardozzi single brought the Nationals to 68 wins on the season, and drew them to within two games of the third place Mets. While Lombardozzi was energized by his hit, Ross Detwiler was the big news of the game for the Nationals. The lefty breezed through the Mets line-up for 5.2 innings before losing the strike zone and walking two. The Mets then capitalized, with a single from David Wright and a double from Angel Pagan.

Detwiler’s outing brought his ERA to 3.76 for the year, and put him in line in the competition for a spot on the Nationals’ starting rotation for 2012. Speaking of Detwiler’s outing following the game, Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson said that Detwiler “just lost it” in the sixth inning, but that he didn’t know why. “It just happened,” Johnson said. “I would have liked to get him the win.”

Leading 3-2, the Nationals’ bullpen came through again, with Todd Coffey, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen shutting down the Madoffs the rest of the way. Johnson praised the bullpen after the win, adding that he was pleased that “we were able to rest” Clippard over the previous two days. “He was fresh and we needed that,” Johnson said. Coffey got the win, Clippard registered his 33rd hold, and Storen notched his 35th save.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Mets have now lost their third in a row, and the fans over at ‘Amazin Avenue aren’t pleased, comparing Monday night’s game to the snoozes provided by former Met Steve Trachsel, who believed that so long as you stood on the mound with the ball, nothing bad could happen . . .

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Jordan Zimmermann pitched into the sixth inning, the Nats rapped out nine hits, and Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez got two badly needed RBIs for his first hit of the season as the Washington Nationals surged past the New York Mets, 6-2, on Friday. It now seems all but certain that the young, but steady, Zimmermann is a commanding influence in the Nats’ starting rotation — which has been outstanding in the 2011 campaign’s early going. Zimmermann added to his own growing resume with an unexpected, but badly needed, two run RBI single of his own in the second inning. The victory brought the Nationals to 3-4 in the young season, with the team adding to their own legendary mastery of the Mets. The Nats are now 6-3 in their last nine games against the Metropolitans.

Once again the bullpen was superb, providing the Nationals with 3.2 innings of one hit baseball, while striking out three and walking two. The only unsteady presence was Chad Gaudin, who is having problems mastering the strike zone. The key contributor in the pen once again was Tyler Clippard, who is emerging as one of baseball’s most effective relievers. Clippard came on in relief of Gaudin, with runners on second and third and one out — and retired the side. “In those situations, you have to set the tone and throw strikes. I was able to do that,” Clippard said. “The last few outings, I’m trying to build some confidence. We have been playing good ball. We tried to change the momentum today and get it on our side. I made some good pitches to where we were able to do that.”

Trouble For The Kings of Queens: You can see why Mets fans are worried. Friday’s win came at the expense of Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, one of the mainstays of the shaky Mets rotation. But Dickey has problems of his own, including a nagging nail problem that hampers his control. New manager Terry Collins lifted Dickey for this reason, despite the pitcher’s claim that he could go another inning. “I tried to hang in there as long as I could,” Dickey said. Other post-game comments centered on Carlos Beltran, who started in right field at Citi Field for the first time in his career. Beltran told the press that he felt “comfortable” in right and that he is seeing the ball well at the plate. It’s good that Beltran is seeing the ball well, but that’s not the issue — the issue is whether he can run. And the answer is that he can’t: Beltran’s knees are wobbly, which is clear every time he takes the field.

This isn’t the only worry for Mets fans. The continuing financial problems of the Wilpons mean that the Mets will not be able to afford the kind of acquisitions the team desperately needs, the starting rotation is stocked with question marks, Ike Davis is not turning into the kind of superstar Mets fans had hoped for, the farm system is thin-thin-thin, the team is crippled by hefty salaries for so-so players (like Francisco Rodriguez, who was booed by the fans during team introductions on Friday), the team’s ace (Johan Santana) may not pitch at all this season, no one knows when Jason Bay will return (or whether he’ll return as the Jason Bay of old), and “ace” Mike Pelfrey might be imploding.

There is good news: Jose Reyes is healthy, David Wright remains an elite third baseman and the bullpen is young and strong. And new manager Terry Collins (not known for his patience) might be just the kind of go-get-em personality the team needs. Still, Met fans are likely to be disappointed by the team in the coming campaign and it may be past time (as one scout told Sports Illustrated) for the franchise to “blow it up and start over.”

Sooner or later there was bound to be an N.L. East team that was worse than the Nationals, and now it turns out there likely will be. This is hardly a palliative for long-suffering Nationals fans, particularly since the death spiral of the team in question has as much to do with its off-field woes as it does with its on-field performance. Or more. The New York Mets have had troubles putting together a coherent line-up for some time now, but news that the Mets’ owners, the Wilpon family, are having trouble balancing the books is probably the last piece of evidence anyone needs to show that the Mets are not what they once were. Of course, we’ve said this before: last year, CFG announced immodestly that the Nats would finish ahead of the Mets in the “N.L. Least” — words that we had to eat ignore when a final accounting came do. Never fear: this is the year of the Nats.

And, in many ways, it’s also the year of the Mets. Rumors started to circulate early last season that the Mets were having financial troubles, the result of Bernie Madoff’s siren song financial promises to Mets owner Fred Wilpon. It’s not known exactly how much Wilpon lost in the Madoff scandal, but it was appreciable enough for Wilpon to ask Major League Baseball for a $25 million loan. Commissioner Bud Selig, a Wilpon fan, tossed over the money, hoping to stabilize the franchise and keep the team out of bankruptcy. It was that bad. Selig then recommended Wilpon hire baseball guru Sandy Alderson — and, as any businessman will tell you, when the bank holding your paper makes a suggestion, you usually take it. As it turns out, the $25 million-plus-Alderson may not be enough. New York newspapers are awash with reports that the team faces a mid-season fire sale of some of its best players just to stay afloat; that, or the Mets will relieve their financial distress by finding new owners.

The impact of this is being felt on the field. New York’s John Delcos’ writes: an ownership transition may be in the works, which means the Mets “will attempt to deal Carlos Beltran this July, doing everything it can from having Francisco Rodriguez’s $17.5 million option kick in, and after the season ridding itself of Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo.” Can franchise cornerstone David Wright be far behind? Writing in the New York Post, Joel Sherman says Alderson’s job will be to slash the Mets’ payroll from $140 million to $70 million — which means everything (and everyone) will be on the table. The Wilpons, Sherman writes “are fighting ardently to retain the team, and it would not be unique for an ownership in financial hell to make its costliest players available. For the Mets, that would mean not only the free-agents-to-be, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes, but also Jason Bay, Francisco Rodriguez, Johan Santana, and, yes, even seeing what would be available for organizational icon David Wright.”

There isn’t anything here that is fair to Mets’ fans, who don’t like the Wilpons to begin with: they’re the ones who will have to watch as the Mets are made to pay for the Wilpons’ poor judgment. Nor is it particularly just to note that the Chokes (we promised not to use that term, but then . . .) were breaking down even before Bernie’s appearance — Jose Reyes is not the same player he was in 2006, Carlos Beltran continues to fight injuries, David Wright is having trouble hitting the long ball in the new stadium, Johan Santana’s arm is hanging by a thread and Oliver Perez is, well . . . you know. “I don’t think any NL East team would trade all the players in their organization for those of the Mets,” Sherman writes. “Even the Nationals can imagine their next three-to-seven years being better than the Mets’ simply by having Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg under control.” Which is only to conclude with this irony — while Nats fans complain endlessly about the Lerners (the “slow Lerners” as one of our readers recently commented), compared to the Wilpons they look absolutely enlightened.

The baseball card geeks are at it again. Every year at about this time (well, actually, a little earlier than just now), baseball card hobbyists weigh in with their views on the latest Topps release. Through the ’80s and ’90s (when the market was absolutely flooded with cards), card collectors gave Topps (and Bowman, Fleer, Upper Deck — and all the rest) mostly “thumbs down” on their card designs. For good reason: card manufacturers were churning out slapdash relics, throwbacks, “legends,” “chrome,” “diamond cuts,” “heritage” and you-name-it “editions.” The card companies accomplished the impossible: they actually drove collectors away from collecting, pricing gum-chewing kids out of the hobby. The cards got expensive, the market offerings confusing.

To give card companies their due, Topps (and the rest of them) realized the problem and started to streamline their products. The result was that, while the market did not completely right itself, a way back has been charted. Then too, the kind of “Dow Jones” mentality that drove card values started to wane — collectors got fed up with over-50s guys with magnifying glasses telling them that their card was not the “10″ they thought it was, but “only a 9.5.” The purists have started to return to collecting, buying cards and opening packs for the pure joy of it.

Still, problems remain. This year, the hobby has been beset by a renewed discussion of the value of “game used” relics — like the Honus Wagner card above. The “relic” cards purport to include actual pieces of a jersey or bat (or whatever), used by a famous player. The problem, of course, is that in order to produce “relic” cards, card manufacturers have to break up actual relics — to get a piece of a Honus Wagner bat (or jersey), you have to cut up the actual bat or jersey. The other issue is that it’s nearly impossible to prove that a relic card includes an actual relic. The Honus Wagner “relic” card is a case in point. The “Mojo Beard” points out that the relic jersey included in the Wagner cards is polyester — which wasn’t around when Honus was playing. Mojo asks the obvious question: “This card comes from a pack that retails for right around $200. Would you pay $200 for a card like this?”

My answer is “no,” and I’m not alone. About twice a year I end up walking up-and-down the aisles of some card show with me droogies, eyeing the products and waiting for the show to end. That’s because the closer to closing a show gets, the faster card prices drop. I’ve done this half-a-dozen times, and it’s paid off — that special 1953 Satchel Paige card that I always wanted would have cost me $450 at 1 pm on a Sunday last year. At 4 pm I got it for $350. I’m not kidding myself: that Satchel Paige card wouldn’t be worth diddly if I wasn’t willing to buy it. The baseball card “industry” shouldn’t kid themselves either: it’s the collectors that give baseball cards their “value” — not the cards themselves. “This card is only an ’8′,” the dealer told me, when I bought the Paige card. “I don’t care,” I said. “For me, it’s a 10.”

Oh yeah, and here, for the record, is Topps’ 2011 card design. This one is a horizontal “David Wright,” with the standard sweeping arc common to all the cards. Not bad.

If you think you’re disappointed in your home town team, you should live in New York. Mets fans showed up at Citi Field to watch their Mets lose to the Nationals (2-1) and grumbled throughout the game, showing their displeasure by wearing bags over their head and remaining largely silent throughout the contest. In normal circumstances this would have also been the reaction of Nats fans, but the expectations for the Nats were always low — the object was not to win the division, but to get better. Not so in the Apple, where an indifferent and disappointing off-season was followed by an even more disappointing 2010 campaign.

It took three walks and a hit batter in the 14th inning for Mets fans to have their fill: a loss so symbolic of the team’s problems that Mets fans chanted MVP when Oliver Perez took the mound. There’s enough blame to go around in this clubhouse,” the Apples’ third baseman, David Wright said, following the contest. Washington Nationals players were pleased with the victory, but had to feel the same about the season — an improvement, but hardly something that calls for a celebration. Jim Riggleman admitted as much: “Most of the guys — individually — had an OK year statistically, but you put it all together and it just didn’t work,” Riggleman said following the contest. “On paper, it looked OK, but it didn’t turn into a lot of runs scored. That is the point of the game — you try to outscore the opponent — and we just didn’t score enough runs.”

And so it is — the end of a campaign that saw the development of Ian Desmond at short and the arrival of a potentially game changing rookie second baseman. And there were hightlights, some of them breathtaking: another great year from Ryan Zimmerman, a brilliant year from Adam Dunn, the heart-thumping arrival of Stephen Strasburg and the pride exhibited in a remodeled and strong bullpen. It wasn’t enough and in the end the Nats had to be satisfied (or dissatisfied) with another last place finish. But at least for Washington’s last home game (and in spite of the last place finish), no Nats fan wore a bag over their head.

The Nats continued to struggle on the road, suffering a 4-1 road loss in Atlanta on Wednesday. The defeat was yet further evidence that the Nationals downward spiral is for real — that the early season hope that the Rizzo and Riggleman’s Nine could contend in the NL East, or at least play .500 ball, has now faded. The deep funk seems puzzling to Nats players, who regularly cite the team’s talent as an indication that things will improve. “We need something,” first baseman Adam Dunn said in the wake of yesterday’s loss at Turner Field. “We’re not playing up to our capabilities, and I don’t know why that is. It’s not for a lack of effort, a lack of talent, any of that. I don’t know.”

For the most part, as Dunn seems to imply, the Nats have been victimized by themselves — with a lack of steady pitching (excepting for those who pitch into those who pitch into the 7th, as Craig Stammen did on Tuesday), good hitting (the entire team, with the exception of Dunn, is slumping), poor fielding (the Nats are last in defense), and indifferent and confounding base running — as evidenced by Nyjer Morgan’s continuing inability to read the pick off moves of opposing pitchers. What to do? What to do? What to do? It’s hard to imagine the Mike Rizzo would thoughtlessly scramble to stop the bleeding, but the escalation in trade talk is a signal, and a fairly significant one, that the front office is beginning to search for a solution outside of Syracuse or Harrisburg.

The House That Jose Built: The Mets have provided New York with a history of spotty but triumphant success that has, admittedly, provided some memorable moments — the 1969 “Miracle Mets” and the 1986 “we beat Boston” Mets.  Even so, the Mets are New York’s second team, bearing no resemblance to the New York Siths, who regularly lug home the World Series trophy. This anguish was on full display in ’08 and ’09, as the Mets collapsed and then underperformed. It was no wonder that baseball’s gurus had doubts that the 2010 version of the Mets would follow suit: the front office seemed in chaos, with GM Omar Minaya pleading the case that signing Jason Bay (and only Jason Bay) was the right decision. Now, as it turns out, Minaya knew something we didn’t — that the Mets had enough pieces in place to contend in the NL East, and perhaps well into the post season.

Here are the pieces: a revived Mike Pelfrey (10-1, 2.93 ERA), slap-and-power first baseman Ike Davis (.261, 9 HR), a surprisingly uninjured Angel Pagan (steady defense, good speed, .304 BA) some guy named R.A. Dickey (6-1, 1.29 WHIP), a solid enough bullpen and (if that is still not enough) a good-enuf Jason Bay and a reanimated hit-homers-the-other- way, David Wright. All of this makes up for the team’s other struggles: fans are worried that Johan Santana will remain inconsistent and that the Mets will not be able to fight their way through holes on the left side, behind the plate and on the mound in the middle innings. But the real key to the Amazin’s amazing early season of success is Jose Reyes. The evidence that Reyes is the key to the team is non-statistical and purely intuitive: without him the Lords of Flatbush look like the peasants of Queens.

For more than a year, Reyes has battled an assortment of injuries, the most recently a high profile thyroid problem that apparently barred him from so much as working out. Before that it was a “cranky hamstring” that simply wouldn’t heel, leading to worries that the fleet-footed shortstop might be permanently slowed. But Reyes has come back this year with his patented passion for the game and eternally smiling countenance. He seems to have returned to the form that once made him the most talked about man in baseball, and a leading candidate for best shortstop in New York. He threatens to do what no other Mets player can do: turn Mets haters into proto fans, those who watch the Metropolitans just to see him play. In spite of his very good (but not great) stats, Reyes — not Bay, not Dickey, not Santana — is the symbol of these Mets. He went 0-7 during the mid-April marathon against the Cardinals: he notched the game winning RBI and scored a run and was ecstatic after the game. “I’m ready for tomorrow,” he said. The Nationals will take on the Metropolitans starting tonight at Nationals Park.