If you watched Tim Kurkjian last night on ESPN, then you know just how close he came to an on-air myocardial infarction. In the history of the game, he said, what viewers just saw was history — the best night of baseball ever of any regular season. The best, as he repeated, in 200,000 games. In fact, he’s right — it might well have been.

Unless, of course, you’re a fan of either the Boston Red Sox or Atlanta Braves. For both of those clubs, and their fans, the “night to remember” was a belly-up sinking that compared with the loss of the “unsinkable” Titanic: it just wasn’t supposed to happen. Fans will focus on the Red Sox, of course, but down in Atlanta the despair was as keenly felt. You only have so many shots at this, and this may be one of the Braves’ last.

“When you’re in a slump as a team, you find a bunch of different ways to lose,” third baseman Chipper Jones said after the Bravos dropped a nail biter to the Phillies. “Bats go silent. You get wild on the mound. You walk in runs. You find different ways to lose and we sure did over the past couple weeks.”

Okay. But still — the most improbable of improbables was not the Braves loss to Philadelphia (let alone the Redbirds whitewashing of the Astros), or even the fact that somehow the Tampa Bay Rays came back to take a 12 inning victory from the Yankees, but Baltimore’s epic ninth inning walk off victory against the Nation. “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” the unsinkable Molly Brown said as she saw the Titanic go down, stern first.

And that’s what we all said, last night, when Robert Andino put a Jonathan Papelbon offering just off the glove of Carl Crawford in left field to score Noland Reimold and give the Orioles (the Orioles!) a walk-off 4-3 win in Baltimore. There’s a reason why fans keep their mouths shut when they’re watching a no-hitter in the ninth, just as there’s a reason why you don’t pitch Tim Wakefield eight times in the middle of a divisional race just so he can get his 200th win. (What the hell were they thinking?)

Here’s some other things you don’t ever do, no matter what. You don’t calculate that you have an inside shot just because the Rays are playing the Yankees, you don’t headline that you have “the best team ever” at the beginning of a season, you don’t describe the Iraqi insurgents as “pushovers” — and you don’t call a ship unsinkable when it’s sitting in Belfast Harbor: you don’t flirt with icebergs.

So . . . so don’t rewrite the rules. They remain, the rules. You don’t tempt fate, which is what the Red Sox did all of September, and it’s what they did last night. It’s call hubris, and it’s been around since Homer. “I’m pretty shocked,” Red Sox arm John Lester said. “Not only with the Rays game, but in our game, we’ve got the best closer in baseball. That stuff doesn’t happen to him.” Oh, c’mon. Sure it does.  This is baseball.

The Washington Nationals will not be able to finish the 2011 season at .500 — and you can thank the bottom feeding Florida Marlins for that. Bryan Petersen sent the Nationals home a loser last night, stroking a walk off two out home run to make the Marlins winners, 3-2. The loss put the Nationals at 79-81, with one game to play.

The home run, off of lefty Doug Slaten, clouded an otherwise successful night for starter John Lannan, who pitched six innings while giving up only three hits. But the story of the night was on the side of the Marlins, whose starter — Javier Vazquez — might well have pitched his last game before retiring. Vazquez went nine innings while giving up only five hits to the Nationals, an exclamation point for what the team needs to find this off-season.

Despite the loss, the Nationals were able to contribute a highlight: Michael Morse hit his 31st home run of the year. Though it’s hardly a surprise, the dinger means that Morse will finish the season as the Nationals’ top slugger, leading the team in batting average (.303), home runs (31) and RBIs (95). “I put in a lot of hard work, and I’m glad that it paid off,” Morse said following the loss.

The Mess in Atlanta: Last night’s starting pitchers for the Red Sox and Braves — Erik Bedard and Derek Lowe — oughta tell us something about where those teams are. And they didn’t disappoint: Bedard lasted just 3.1 in the Red Sox win in Baltimore, while Lowe lasted just four in the Braves’ 7-1 loss against the Phillies in Atlanta . . .

We’re no fans of the Cardinals, but it’s hard to take the Braves seriously. Atlanta’s rotation is badly hobbled: Tommy Hanson has a tear in his shoulder, Jair Jurrjens has a sore knee, and Lowe (who looks like he should be on the DL) is shot-putting the ball in the hope that it ends up somewhere near the plate. You can’t go into the playoffs like that — well, you can, but you won’t win . . .

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The Washington Nationals broke out the lumber at Nationals’ Park on Sunday, spraying twelve hits and hitting back-to-back-to-back home runs to down the visiting Houston Astros, 8-2. The hit parade was led by Ian Desmond, who was 3-5 with two RBIs. Ryan Zimmerman, Chris Marrero and Danny Espinosa claimed two hits each, with Rick Ankiel, Jayson Werth and Laynce Nix each collecting one. The win meant that the Nationals took the series, two games to one.

“I think the nicest thing about all that is we finally had the lead,” Desmond said following the victory. “All series and the last two series, we have been behind and defensive. So today, we all wanted to make sure that we stayed aggressive. We weren’t so passive, giving a pitcher a strike, whatever it may have been. We wanted to make sure we were in the driver’s seat all day. That worked out for us.”

The Nats’ win dampened the headlines that were sure to be dominated by Stephen Strasburg, who pitched three innings — but was taken out by Davey Johnson after throwing 57 pitches. Johnson noted that Strasburg had thrown a lot of pitches in the first inning, and he didn’t want to extend him further: ” I explained to him, ‘I don’t want to [take you out during an inning]. As far, as I’m concerned, it’s like your second time out in Spring Training. That’s enough for me. You are not going to go five.’”

The Nats home run trifecta took place in the third inning, when Ian Desmond hit his eighth homer, Rick Ankiel followed with his ninth and Ryan Zimmerman followed with his 12th. The back-to-back-to-back home runs were the first time the Nationals had accomplished that unique feat since 2009. Once again the Nationals bullpen was superb: Tom Gorzelanny, Sean Burnett and Henry Rodriguez held the Astros scoreless, with Doug Slaten giving up an unearned run in the ninth.

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: The by-now traditional end-of-year conversation dominated the talk of the section, nearly from the beginning of the game — determining who would (and who would not), be with the Nationals next year. The yakking started with Rick Ankiel. “Definitely gone,” one opinionated fan said. “What? Seven, eight home runs? We can do better.”

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The Washington Nationals won ugly on Friday night, but they won. With two on and one out in the eleventh inning, Jayson Werth hit a bounder to Astros’ third baseman Jimmy Paredes who, in an attempt to get a force out at second, threw the ball into left field. The muff scored Ryan Zimmerman with the walk-off run, giving the Nationals a badly needed, 4-3, bottom of the 11th inning walk off victory.

“Initially, I hit it and I knew there was a potential double play, so I was running hard out of the box,” Werth said following the victory. “I looked to see what happened at second when I didn’t see the ball. I thought it was going to be there. I kept looking, and I saw it go in the outfield. That was that.” The walk-off notched a win for Tyler Clippard — but the victory could have gone to the entire bullpen, which kept the Astros off the board from the 6th inning on.

The botched throw from Paredes lacked the deep-throated dramatics of the Nationals’ usual walk-off triumphs, but the win was welcome: the Nationals had struggled with putting runs on the board of late, and were attempting to recover from a late-game 7-4 pasting at the hands of the Dodgers on Thursday.

Even with the win, the Nationals were able to scatter only six hits off of five Houston pitchers. The lack of offense has been the most disheartening part of an up-and-down season. In the wake of the Houston win on Friday, Nationals’ manager Davey Johnson told the media the problem has kept him awake nights. “I’m used to a little more of a comfort zone,” Johnson said. “With all the young players … it’s been that kind of a struggle. Everybody’s trying to probably do a little too much.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The clubhouse is crowded with new arrivals, and three of them started the game on Friday. Steve Lombardozzi started at short, Chris Marrero was at first, and Tom Milone was on the mound. The early results are just starting to come in, but here’s what they say: Lombardozzi has not yet mastered major league pitching, Marrero has yet to hit the long ball, and Milone needs to work on getting through a line-up the second time . . .

For those who think that is too negative, there’s this — there doesn’t seem much doubt that Lombardozzi can hit, Marrero’s double last night to left-center was one of the hardest hit non-dinger slaps this year at Nationals’ Park and Milone is absolutely unintimidated by major league hitting . . .

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Chien-Ming Wang still isn’t ready for prime time. The former Yankee and new Nationals’ righthander struggled through five innings against the Braves yesterday, giving up seven hits and two runs through five innings — and the Nationals fell to Atlanta in the final game of their three game set, 6-4.

While Wang recovered from a shaky first inning (in which he gave up two runs), he had trouble in the fifth, which proved the key to the game. Wang threw wildly on a Brandon Beachy bleeder for a two base error, Jose “George” Constanza followed with a single and, after a force play and an out at the plate, Dan Uggla plated the two stranded runners (and himself) with a three run homer.

The Nats fought back, rapping out a four run sixth inning, with a walk by Danny Espinos, singles by Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse, a Beachy wild pitch and a Jayson Werth home run. But four runs weren’t enough to secure the victory. Despite the loss, pitching coach Steve McCatty was upbeat on Wang. “He had better sink,” McCatty said after the game. “The offspeed pitches were a little flat. He got hurt on that. If he makes a play in the fifth inning — no damage.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Jason Marquis debuted for the Arizona Diamondbacks yesterday, and it didn’t go well. The former Nats’ righty gave up ten hits and seven runs over four innings, as the Snakes fell to the McCoveys, 8-1. Marquis wasn’t the only thing traded to Arizona; so too was the explanation for why he does poorly: his sinker wasn’t sinking . . .

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It’s quite possible that finally — five months into the 2011 baseball season — the Nationals have finally found their leadoff hitter. Batting in the first slot in the line-up last night, centerfield veteran Rick Ankiel blasted two home runs in leading the Nationals to a 5-3 victory over the Braves at Nationals Park. Ankiel’s homers allowed Livan Hernandez (six innings, six hits and three strikeouts) to walk away with his sixth win of the season.

Ankiel’s homers were only his fourth and fifth of the year and came in the first and the fifth inning — both off of usually reliable Braves’ starter Jair Jurrjens, who registered his fourth loss. Ankiel, who has been in and out of the line-up all year (and has struggled at the plate) seems finally to be swinging with authority. “You just look for a pitch to drive. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you make it happen, sometimes you don’t,” Ankiel said after the victory. “Lately, I’ve been making good contact and good things are happening.”

It’s too soon to tell whether Ankiel’s Monday night performance means that he will be an every game feature at the leadoff position, but Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson liked what he saw: “Now he [Ankiel] is [playing] and he has cut down on his strikeouts, his swings are better,” Johnson said. “That comes with playing. In the last couple of years, I don’t think he has played much.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: If either Pittsburgh or Cincinnati are to have a chance in the N.L. Central, they’re going to have to beat the teams behind them. Last night they didn’t. Newest Ahoy Derrek Lee celebrated his arrival in Pittsburgh with two home runs, but the Pirates couldn’t beat the no-account Cubs, suffering their fourth loss in a row by a 5-3 score. Catch ‘em while you can; they’re fading, and fast . . .

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Jayson Werth might well have broken out of his season-long slump on Wednesday, as the frustrated right fielder, went 3-5 in accounting for two doubles and a home run (his 11th) — but the Washington Nationals lost in extra innings to the Houston Astros, 3-2 in Houston. The loss means that the Astros took the three game series, and sent the Nationals on to Los Angeles with a 2-4 road trip.

Livan Hernandez turned in a badly needed solid start, after struggling with two bad outings in his last three mound appearances. Hernandez turned in six complete innings, while giving up seven hits and only one walk. But as in previous games, the Nationals’ bats went silent when they were needed most, and the team stranded Werth on second base with the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th.

Aside from the tough loss, which came at the expense of usually reliable reliever Todd Coffey (who put the blame for the loss on his shoulders), the big news of the day was Werth. “I’ve seen really good signs for about a week,” Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson said of Werth. “He’s started to feel a little better. He was a lot more aggressive today. He hit a couple of first-pitch fastballs, which he hadn’t done. He’s probably leading the league in pitches taken. But it’s good to see him get aggressive out there.”

The Nationals have had to play through some tough one run losses, and Wednesday was another example. While Henry Rodriguez was shaky on the mound in relief of Hernandez, Tyler Clippard came in with two Astros’ runners on and nobody out and saved the day — which is becoming standard practice for the All-Star. “It’s tough in a situation like that,” Clippard said after the game. “You try to limit the damage. I made a good pitch to Barmes to make him pop out in the infield. I was able to pound the zone and put my fastball where I wanted to.”

Is Werth out of his slump? While the veteran (who raised his average to .218) wouldn’t say, it’s clear he keeps looking for ways to help the Nats win games. This afternoon presented a perfect, but missed, opportunity. “It seems like all [the one-run games] we lose, we don’t match up,” he said. “We hit when we don’t pitch and we don’t hit when we do pitch.”