It wasn’t so long ago that Nationals’ fans winced when thinking about their pitching staff — hoping to find in the bunch (remember Scott Olsen?) just three solid innings eaters that would give the team a chance to win. My, my, my  how things have changed. Not only can Nats’ fans count on three good pitchers, there’s a chance that the five they have are among the best in baseball.

Edwin Jackson (pitcher number 4 behind Strasburg, Gonzalez and Zimmermann), showed his stuff on Saturday, throwing the team’s first complete game of the season and holding the Cincinnati Reds to just two hits. Jackson, who dominated this “little Red Machine,” threw just 92 pitches in his outing, leading the Nationals to a 4-1 victory before 35,000 appreciative fans on Saturday.

Of course, the “baseball Gods” could turn all of this around — and they usually do: jinxing teams that become over-inflated, tearing up muscles from young wanna-be’s, sending well-thrown fastballs over band box fences. But so far, at least, Nationals pitchers have got the pundits and critics flummoxed over their predictions that the Washington Nine are no better than third place in the N.L. East, behind Philadelphia and Atlanta. In fact, they’re first, having won their last five in a row, and with youngster Ross Detwiler headed to the mound.

Davey Johnson knows all about the baseball gods. “When I’m seeing a gem and we need it, lights out, it makes me nervous,” he said following the Jackson outing. “I usually don’t get nervous. But when you see something like that — he had a low pitch count, just a dominating game — from a manager’s standpoint, you don’t want anything to go wrong. You kind of protect against all contingencies. You are all wound up.”

Jackson’s two hitter was punctuated by another good outing from Nats’ hitters, who spread out ten hits in scoring four. Adam LaRoche and Jayson Werth contributed another two hit day, with LaRoche plating two of Washington’s four runs. Jesus Flores, the D.C. backup catcher (it’s only a matter of time before other teams come knocking, if they haven’t already) went 3-3. Washington wraps up the series against the Reds on Sunday, playing for a sweep.

So, just how good is this staff? In truth, its only competition in the N.L. East comes from the Phillies (with Halladay, Hamels and Lee), while the Giants (in the West) provide the only similar set of arms in the entire National League — with Lincecum, Cain and Bumgarner a tough front three. Okay, fine. But the Nationals are at least four deep, as Jackson showed yesterday. But the season is young and anything can happen. So knock on wood, throw some salt over your shoulder, and sink to your knees. If anything can happen, it usually does.

Jayson Werth’s 13th inning single past a diving Zack Cozart scored Danny Espinosa and gave the Nationals a 2-1 victory at Nationals’ Park on Friday night — extending the team’s early season winning streak to four games. Werth’s single came after Jordan Zimmermann pitched seven innings of three hit baseball, and the Nationals’ bullpen held the Reds to two hits in six innings.

“That was good,” Werth said, following the victory. “We were out there for a long time. You play that long and not get a win, that would hurt. We are lucky to get the win. We have another game tomorrow, the next day and the day after that. Hopefully, we’ll keep winning.” The victory brought the Nationals to 6-2 on the year, their best start since coming to Washington.

The game featured a tough pitchers’ duel between Washington starter Zimmermann, and Cincinnati’s Bronson Arroyo. Arroyo pitched into the eighth inning, holding the Nationals to just three hits while striking out four, and aiding his own cause by going 1-2 and hitting in Cincinnati’s lone run. D.C. starter Zimmermann matched him on the mound, throwing 100 pitches, 71 for strikes.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Major League Baseball is starting to take note of the Nationals, particularly considering the early season struggles of their main competitors. The Phillies are 3-4 on the young season, and lost last night to R.A. Dickey’s Mets, 5-2 . . . The Philllies are without slugger Ryan Howard and spark plug Chase Utley, both sidelined with injuries . . .

Atlanta also sits at 3-4, though they won last night against Milwaukee in a slugfest, 10-8 . . . Unlike the Phillies, the Braves are healthy, except for Chipper Jones (battling a rehabbing knee) and Tim Hudson, who’s pitching through a bad back with rehab starts in the minors . . .

Then there are the Florida Miami Marlins, who beat the Astros last night in a thrilling walk-off. The Marlins are 3-5, fighting their way through off-field distractions, and now battling their way through a new ballpark. There were at least four long fly balls into left field during last night’s game that would have been home runs nearly everywhere else. The betting is that, at some point, the team will be forced to move in the fences, as the Mets did at CitiField . . .

After dropping two of three to the Nationals, the Mets have tuned out baseball pundits who picked them for last place in the N.L East. While Jason Bay is hitting an anemic .174, he seems to play better outside of New York, where the boos rain down every time he steps to the plate . . .

Bay “boiled over” during the recent Nationals’ 4-0 scrubbing of the Mets in New York, arguing balls and strikes with home plate umpire Larry Vanover. Mets’ manager Terry Collins defended his left fielder, got tossed from the game for supporting him, but has no regrets. “Jason Bay doesn’t say anything to anybody . . . So when he’s arguing, there’s an issue.”

Jayson Werth went 4-5 and knocked in two runs — and the Nationals stroked thirteen hits — as the Anacostia Nine beat up on the New York Mets at Citifield 6-2 on Tuesday. This was the first regular season outing for Ross Detwiler, who pitched five complete innings and gave up just two hits.

“He probably could have given me another inning, but he didn’t have a full spring starting. It was an outstanding effort on his part,” Nats’ manager Davy Johnson said of Detwiler’s outing. The night proved to be a long one for the Mets, who entered the game unbeaten. But Washington’s first hitter, Ian Desmond, put a Dillon Gee offering into the left field seats. The Desmond dinger set the tone for the night, as Desmond, Werth and Ramos led the hitting attack.

Werth’s at bats brought a sigh of relief to the Nationals’ right fielder, who was hitting .071 coming into the game. But Werth had been having good at bats and had hit well in Spring Training, with the promise that a strong start would reverse the mediocre year he’d had in 2011. By the end of the game, he’d raised his average to .263.

Unlike their previous outing against the Mets, the Nationals were able to take advantage when they needed to, even though they left eleven men on base during the game. Ryan Zimmerman, who’s also been struggling at the plate, drove in his 500th RBI in the top of the eighth inning, when he brought in Wilson Ramos from third on a sacrifice fly.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Tuesday was both a good day (a 6-2 win in New York) and a bad one for the Nationals. It appears that Michael Morse will not be starting in Washington on Thursday, as a strained right lat muscle has failed to heal. Morse was forced from the single-A Hagerstown game on Monday in the seventh inning, when he could not throw the ball into the shortstop from the outfield. The earliest he could return would be Monday . . .

The Nationals are awaiting medical tests on Drew Storen’s tweaky elbow, and the Nationals fear he may need surgery to remove bone chips . . . The injuries to Morse and Storen, and Rick Ankiel’s continued occupation of the disabled list are sure to spur a clamor for the call-up of Bryce Harper, who’s hitting the snot out of the ball in Syracuse . . .

The “New” And Not So New MASN Team: Kristina Akra is the new on-field on-air reporter for MASN, replacing Debbi Taylor. Akra reported for NESN and the Red Sox. Attractive young women reporting from the field is all the rage in baseball just now (well . . . for the last thirty years), and it seems axiomatic: if their name is “Christina” they must spell it with a “k” . . . Our only suggestion? Watching her post-game interview with Jayson Werth last night was like watching a New York brownstone interview the Empire State Building. We’re not the only ones who noticed and kudos to Nats Enquirer for a great “screen grab” . . . Get the poor girl a chair . . .

There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of information on why Akra replaced Taylor. Early word was that the reporting job was being eliminated. Akra’s appearance seems to undermine that theory. It may be that Taylor just didn’t fit (anyway, that’s what we think) — and she could be grating. Carpenter would key her from the booth — “and now let’s check in with Debbi Taylor” — and there would be a silent scream from “Natsland” . . . “noooooo . . .”

We remember, in particular, an on-air interview with Jayson Werth last year, when Taylor pressed him on Ryan Zimmerman. “So, how great is Ryan Zimmerman?” And then she asked him again. Asking once is fine, but twice? Viewers could see that Werth was getting irritated, even if she couldn’t (or, worse yet, maybe she could). “So just how great is Ryan?” He’d already given an answer, so he looked away and nodded. “Yeah, well, he’s great when he gets out of bed in the morning,” Werth said . . .  pretty rich, that . . .

The team of Bob Carpenter and F.P. Santangelo are back in the booth this year for MASN, and that’s more than okay with us. We flipped between the Nats’ game and the St. Louis-Cincinnati match-up, and noted that the Cardinals’ duo of sleepy and droopy were doing their we-don’t-have-much-to-say routine . . . during a random switch-over we counted four pitches before a word was uttered: “that’s three and oh on Votto . . .” Hello? Anyone there?

Like any on-air duo, it takes some time to get used to the two, and Santangelo’s self-effacing humor is winsomely attractive. They know the game, they call it well, they’re “homers” (we approve) and their humor has some redeeming qualities. At the end of last year, NatsGM did an unofficial poll of fans on whether the two should return, and the vote was overwhelmingly in favor . . .

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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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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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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