You would think that if anyone knows the history of the Washington Nationals, it must be Davey Johnson. And yet, immediately after the Nationals clinched a 3-1 last game victory against the Marlins, Johnson told the press that finishing third was not his idea of a great season. He’s right of course, but for many of the rest of us, the 2011 season is accounted a spectacular success — especially when you compare it to where we’ve been.

The best example of the Nats’ improvement came on Wednesday, with rehabbed righty Stephen Strasburg pitching six more-than-solid innings (he held the Marlins to a single hit, while striking out ten), and the Nationals scoring just enough to get their 80th win. That’s eleven more than last year, when the Nats were dead last. If third is “no great shakes,” then just imagine what fifth feels like.

Of course, Nationals’s fans don’t have to imagine it — they’ve lived it. But now, it seems, the era of blanket franchise apologies and the constant talk of building the bankrupt farm system (it’s built), are history. Third place? We’ll take it. Two years ago, at a CFG confab in Houston, we proudly wore our Curly W hats into a local bar, plunging into the midst of a group of Astros fans, who tittered away at our expense. “What does it feel like to root for the worst team in baseball?”

No more. Now that particular honor belongs to the Houston nine, who finished the year with 106 losses. The Nationals are, finally, a good team — even a very good team. They are better than the Marlins or Mets, better than Colorado, or Pittsburgh or Cincinnati or Chicago. You never compare yourselves to losers, the pundits say, but to the best. Yeah, okay. But if 2011 is any indication (and it is), being the best is not that far off.

Let’s Not Get Carried Away: The Nationals need hitting, and in the worst way. Their close-out 3-1 victory came against a last place team that looked like they didn’t wanna be there. How many hits did these “no great shakes” Nats get? Five. That’s the same as the night before. There are free agents to be had, with big bats, but the solution is at home . . .

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The Nationals closed out their home half of the 2011 season with a decisive, 3-0 win over the Braves — bringing the 35,000-plus fans that came to see them to their feet in sustained standing ovations for their home nine. The victory, the team’s 78th, was sparked by the pitching of Ross Detwiler and home runs from Wilson Ramos and Michael Morse.

Following the victory, Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson praised his club for their year. “There is a lot of fire in this ballclub,” he said. “They are not satisfied with this year. You could probably ask everybody in that room and they wish the season started again. That’s the sense I get from this ballclub. The young nucleus is coming along. It’s just a tribute to the whole organization to be at this point.”

In many ways this was a classic Nationals’ victory: Ross Detwiler pitched out of two jams to notch the win, with the Nationals’ bullpen of Henry Rodriguez, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen locking down the last home triumph. Rodriguez was particularly effective, striking out three while throwing his fastball, in one instance, at 101 miles per hour.

“Once you get into that bullpen of theirs and you’re facing Rodriguez, Clippard and Storen, the swings get a little tougher. Those guys are pretty good,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. After the game, Phil Wood thought that the Rodriguez outing was particularly impressive — and that “there would come a time” when we’d see the swap that brought him from Oakland as one of the best trades in the team’s history. Wood was being understated: that is apparent now.

Following his home run in the bottom of the seventh, which put the game nearly out of Atlanta’s reach, Michael Morse was given a curtain call, his first ever. “It feels great to win,” Morse said afterward. “The team played great. It’s good momentum to show Washington that we are putting together a good team.”

The Wisdom Of Section 1-2-9: Nationals’ fans are getting louder and more outspoken — the result (perhaps) of the recent winning streak and hopes for next year. It was in the 7th inning that they made their feelings known to the few Braves fans in attendance, standing and chanting “Let’s Go Cardinals! Let’s Go Cardinals!”

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In the aftermath of Chien-Ming Wang’s steady and powerful outing against the Atlanta Braves on Saturday, Davey Johnson faced the Washington baseball press. In light of Wang’s performance against the Braves, he was asked, would he recommend that the righty be offered a contract for 2012? Johnson didn’t hesitate: “No doubt about it,” he said, and then repeated it. “No doubt about it.”

Washington fans might rise to applaud this statement, particularly in light of Wang’s recent outings. The righty, signed by Mike Rizzo while still recovering from a blown out shoulder, has proven to be a good gamble. Wang has pitched no fewer than five innings in each of his last ten starts, and has pitched six complete in his last two — which includes today’s four hit 4-1 spectacular against Atlanta.

Johnson made it clear — he would have left Wang in to complete the game, but the bullpen needed work, and performed to their usual standards, with Gorzelanny, Clippard and Storen combining to hold the Braves to two hits in three complete innings of work. Drew Storen notched his 41st save on the season, and it’s probably not his last.

Wang made it look ho-hum-easy. He threw 85 pitches, 51 of them for strikes. His sinker looked as good as, or even better than, normal — a fact mentioned by Johnson, who said that the more Wang’s pitched, the more progress he’s made. His teammates in the infield agree. “He works quickly and he knows what he is going to do,” second sacker Danny Espinosa said. “When he has such a good plan like that, you stay active in case a ground ball [comes your way]. It keeps you in the game.”

Wang was even able to help his own cause at the plate. In the bottom of the 4th, he singled past first base into right field — scoring Espinosa. It was his first hit as a National, and his first in the majors. The crowd stood and roared its approval. “I had a bad record before,” Wang said of his hit. “All I wanted to do was just swing the bat, make contact, and I was kind of lucky. It was a line drive.

In notching their 77th win of the season, the Nationals put the Tomahawks in a squeeze — the Bravos needed a victory in their race for the Wild Card, and are now just two games ahead of the Musials. “We’ve got to win ballgames,” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez. “It’s nice to watch the scoreboard and all of that. But we’ve got to win the games that are in front of us.”

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: There was an ovation for Chien-Ming Wang among the section’s regulars — and for Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, who might have been making his last start (or his last appearance) in a Nationals uniform. That fact was not lost on Davey Johnson, who noted that the Hall-of-Fame bound catcher has remained a positive force in the clubhouse. “He’s just fun to watch,” a section-mate added . . .

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“Tommy was real impressive,” Nats’ manager Davey Johnson said of Tom Milone after the Nats dealt the Phillies a 4-3 defeat in ten innings on Tuesday afternoon. “He showed me a lot.” Milone pitched a solid six innings of shutout ball against the Phillies, giving up just four hits and striking out two.

But Milone’s probable win was erased by the Philllies in the bottom of the seventh, when Doug Slaten and Tyler Clippard couldn’t hold the heavy hitting Phillies, who tied the game on a Nats’ killer Raul Ibanez home run. Ibanez’s soaring dinger came off Tyler Clippard with two on base, and erased the heroics of Roger Bernadina, who had put one into the right field seats in the top of the frame.

It wasn’t until the 10th inning that the Nationals could strike back: with two out, Michael Morse walked (and went to second on a passed ball), Danny Espinosa was intentionally walked and pinch hitter Ryan Zimmerman singled to bring in Espinosa with the go-ahead run. Drew Storen came on in the bottom of the tenth (it was another nail biter) and recorded his 39th save.

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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Respectability? Forget about contending for the N.L. East championship (not even the Braves can do that), or the Wild Card (the Braves might not be able to do that either), but Washington’s 3-2 victory in Colorado on Sunday brought the Nats to within four games of .500. While Nats’ fans might think their team is already “respectable,” a .500 record would make it official. Then too, while Nats’ fans are anxious to see some kind of flag waving from somewhere in Nationals Park, an 82-82 finish would be a stunning success — and an amazing improvement over 2010, when the Nats finished 24 games under .500. But can it be done?

If we look at the Colorado series (and not all that closely), the answer is yes . . . and no. Washington lost game one of the match-up, 6-3, because Ross Detwiler was just so-so in his five inning outing, though the game was decided in the eighth, when the usually reliable Ryan Mattheus gave up three runs in a single inning. Game three was more of the same: except that Washington’s Livan Hernandez was less than mediocre, while the Washington bullpen collapsed. Washington actually hit well in both games — breaking the mold for the year.

Washington’s wins, on the other hand, came as a result of solid (not superb, but solid) pitching from its starters: Jordan Zimmermann provided a steady outing in game two (5.2, four hits, two earned runs), John Lannan in game four (6.0, six hits, one earned run). And in each game the bullpen came through to hold the Rockies. That said, the common theme for all of the games was that Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen were the only two bullpen arms who were consistently steady — while Henry Rodriguez (please, please, throw a strike) and Todd Coffey & Company were downright frightening.

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Ian Desmond’s high bounding infield hit and Rick Ankiel’s hustle home in the bottom of the ninth inning provided the winning margin for the Nationals on Sunday, as they took the third game of their three game set against the New York Mets, 3-2 at Nationals Park. Desmond’s hit came after Ankiel, in a heads-up play, was able to take third base in the ninth with one out.

Jordan Zimmermann returned to his ace form as a Washington starter, throwing six complete innings and striking out seven. The only negative in the win came when Drew Storen gave up a two out home run in the ninth inning to Mets’ super utility guy Scott Hairston. The Hairston bomb tied the game, leading to Storen’s fourth blown save on the year.

Aside from Desmond and Ankiel’s ninth inning heroics, the story of the game was Zimmermann, who scattered seven hits in throwing 64 strikes in 107 pitches. Zimmermann pitched out of a major jam in the sixth inning. With Mets on second and third, Zimmermann struck out New York heavyweights Angel Pagan and Jason Bay.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: After shuttling Jerry Hairston to Milwaukee and Jason Marquis to Arizona, the Nationals decided that Minnesota was asking too much for Denard Span. Which meant that rumored trade bait Drew Storen will remain in Washington, along with Roger Bernadina and Steve Lombardozzi — all three of whom (but it was probably just two of them, don’t you think?) Minnesota apparently wanted for their concussed lead-off centerfielder . . .

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