A family member put it best in the seventh inning of last night’s Nats win in Denver: “Maybe the umps are on psychedelics. Maybe they don’t know it’s raining.” It didn’t seem out of the question: for about five innings of the eight inning contest last night, Denver looked more like Manila during a monsoon than Colorado in the warm spring. The night provided Nats and Rockies regulars with a slick slog that puddled the infield and forced outfielders to wade through inch-deep water to catch fly balls descending between torrential rains. The weather didn’t seem to bother the Nats, who banged out 14 runs on sixteen hits, scoring seven in the top of the eighth to seal the victory. Ryan Zimmerman slugged two homers and drove in six, to push the Nats to a 20-15 record. That’s good enough for second place in the NL Least and among the best in all of baseball.

It’s Not A Motorcycle Baby, It’s A Chopper: The Nats shouldn’t get a pass just because they’re playing well. So here goes: what is it that Jim Riggleman hasn’t figured out about Miguel Batista? The Nats skipper brought in Batista’s middle innings arm to provide experience and stability, but Riggleman’s confidence in Batista has to be waning. Mine sure is. Batista was shaky again last night, allowing the Rockies back into the game when they should have been prayed and planted. The former Cubs, Mariner, Diamondback, Blue Jay, Pirate and Marlin sports a 6.04 ERA, but that number should be checked — it has to be low. Last night, the 38-year-old veteran (rough translation: this should be his last stop), came into the game in the 5th, but couldn’t survive the 6th. I almost expected Jim Tracy to beg Rigs to leave him in the game. He gave up a round-tripper to Miguel Olivo. But that wasn’t a surprise to anyone with eyes. Everytime Batista gets behind in the count (which is nearly every batter), he puffs himself up, concentrates real hard . . . and grooves an 87 mph fastball. This is then followed by his shake of the head and a Riggleman visit to the mound. Enough already . . .

Rob Dibble is the constant focus of fan complaints. The MASN baseball analyst is outspoken, a fan of movies that only adolescents would like, culturally out-of-tune (“hey, remember the Fonz?”), and a sometime drain on the patience of Bob Carpenter — a 17-year-old in a forty-something’s body. But for those of us who spend the early hours watching the MLB’s network feeds from the midwest and left coast, Dibble comes across as a guy who knows the game and isn’t afraid to express an opinion. Don’t believe it? Tune into a Cardinals broadcast to see what I mean: Dopey and Sleepy do baseball. I swear — play-by-play guy Dan McLaughlin and color analyst Mike Shannon are terrific, but only if you like long silences and chit chat about everything but baseball. I once timed one of their silences, through two batters and four pitches into a third. And then this: “Nice night.” I thought maybe they’d fallen asleep. I’ll take Dibble any day. Then too (but this is only CFG’s opinion), he beats the daylights out of former Nats broadcast brain Don Sutton, whose phony baloney all-American we-are-family shtick (“Austin Kearns is just a fine young man”) wore out after the first rendition of “America.”

But Dibs makes mistakes, forgivable mistakes to be sure — but mistakes. You can almost feel Carpenter smiling to himself when he does. Last night was pretty typical for the Carpenter-Dibble duo. When Nats’ catcher Ivan Rodriguez came to bat in the top of the eighth with runners on first and second, Carpenter asked his sidekick whether Riggleman would have him push the runners over with a sacrifice bunt. “No way. He’s hitting .407 with runners in scoring position,” Dibs said. “Riggleman’ll have him hit away.” Sure nuf, Pudge laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt, putting runners on second and third. With two on and one out and with first base open, Roger Bernadina was intentionally walked. This brought pinch hitter Cristian Guzman to the plate, who promptly hit a bases-clearing triple. Silence. “Rigs made a pretty good call on that bunt,” Carpenter said.

If Monday is any indication, Craig Stammen has arrived. The 6-3 Ohio native pitched an eight inning, 5-2 gem against the Colorado Rockies at Nationals Park last night, registering his first win of the season. Stammen mixed a moving fastball with his curve and slider to hold the hard-hitting Heltons to two runs, scattering five hits — and getting four RBIs from Willie Harris. Stammen’s outing was in stark contrast to his last visit to the mound, when he pitched batting practice to the Philadelphia Phillies, lasting just 1.1 innings. The key to Stammen’s outing, according to pitching mentor Livan Hernandez, was his slider: “He threw the ball perfectly today,” Hernandez said. “The slider, the cutter were down. He struck out people. I like the way he pitched today. He’s a good guy. I think he has the best stuff of all the starting pitchers. His slider disappears. When he throws perfectly and down, the slider disappears. He has a good changeup and curveball. He throws a little harder. You have to take advantage. The location is more important.”

Willie Harris showed surprising power — although by now, Willie’s ability to go deep should not be in doubt. With two on in the second, Harris lifted an Aaron Cook fastball into deep right field, scoring three. The Harris home run would be all the Nats needed. “I thought it was hooking foul, but somehow it stayed fair,” Harris said. “I was so happy, that you don’t know how I felt running around those bases. It was fun.” Harris entered the game hitting .150. In the third inning, Harris hit a sacrifice fly to score a run — giving him four RBIs on the night.  “If you are hitting .150, you are going to sit on the bench,” Harris said after the game. “I was happy for myself and the team. Everybody wants to play. Unfortunately, if you don’t produce, you are not going to play. Hopefully, I can keep things going and we can play good baseball.”

The Nats latest victim was Rockies’ ace Aaron Cook, who lasted just three innings. Unlike Stammen, Cook’s sinker — celebrated as one of the best in the game — didn’t sink, ending the Rockies’ nine game winning streak at Nationals Park. Cook had control problems from the first pitch.”Cookie wasn’t very good tonight,” Colorado manager Jim Tracy said. “There’s no other way to describe it. He had way too many three-ball counts, and it kind of helped create some negative momentum.” Despite the win, some Nationals are still mired in an early-season slump: Adam Dunn got credit for a lost-in-the-twilight double, but he’s still struggling at the plate. Ivan Rodriguez, on the other hand, continued his hot hitting streak — going 2-4. He’s now hitting .450 on the year. The Nats will face Colorado’s Jorge De La Rosa tonight.

The New York Mets won a wild one in St. Louis — a twenty inning marathon that lasted seven hours. The final line is memorable: both teams used 46 players and 19 pitchers, racking up the seventh longest game in Major League history. The Mets hold the record for playing in the longest game, a 24 inning 1-0 loss to the Astros on April 15, 1968. But the Mets were on the winning end of this one. Together, Mets and Cardinals pitchers threw a combined 652 pitches, lowering team batting averages and ERAs. For a time it looked as if the Red Birds would win, even after Cards manager Tony La Russa chose third sacker Felipe Lopez to pitch the 19th and and left fielder Joe Mather to pitch the 20th. La Russa was apparently saving his team’s arms, but it looked like the Cardinals were waving the white flag. But the game took one final turn: left-fielder-turned-reliever Joe Mather served up a sacrifice fly in the 20th to put the Mets ahead 2-1. Mike Pelfrey, normally a starter, came on to record the save — the first of his career.

The Mets 2-1 win was done by scratching and clawing, for while starter Johan Santana gave the Apples seven badly need well-pitched innings (he gave up only four hits), the Mets biggest bats remained strangely silent. David Wright, Jason Bay and Jeff Francoeur were 1 for 20, and Bay looked particularly ineffective. Bay, who is hitting .222, struck out four times. The Mets-Cards tilt provided an unusual Saturday, even for a baseball fanatic. It was possible to watch Livan Hernandez pitch at Nats Park and then drive home in time to catch every pitch of the Busch Stadium death march. The game wiped out Fox’s Saturday prime time programming and pushed back by one hour the slot for the local news. It was worth it, if only to tally a semi-rare baseball anamoly — Mets relieved Francisco Rodriguez (K-Rod), came on in the 19th to get the save for the Mets, but the Cards tied the score. But the Mets scored again in the top of the 20th and Jerry Manuel brought starter Mike Pelfrey in to to do what K-Rod couldn’t. When Pelfrey succeeded, sending the Mets back to their hotel for a badly needed rest, K-Rod registered a blown save — and a win.

At the same time that the Mets and Cards were marching up Golgotha, Rockies’ starter Ubaldo Jimenez, the best fastball pitcher in the majors, threw the first no hitter in Colorado franchise history. The no-hitter was unusual in this sense: Jimenez was not particularly effective until the 6th inning when, following the advice of former Mets fireballer and now Rockies’ pitching coach Bob Apodaca, he began to pitch from the stretch. “I saw [the Giants' Tim] Lincecum last year do it,” Jimenez said after the game. “He wasn’t good from the windup, then he got from the stretch. It came to my mind. But then Apodaca came to me and I was like, ‘Of course, I’m going to try it.’” It worked. Jimenez began to put the ball down in the zone, and the walks that characterized his first five frames ceased.

Describing Jimenez as “the silent giant,” Rockies’ manager Jim Tracy was buoyed by the win and filled with praise for his starter: “In order for special things to happen, you have to have special people,” Tracy said of Jimenez. “We have a whole clubhouse full of them. But this is this man’s night tonight. In my opinion, it couldn’t happen to a better human being and a more talented human being than this guy.” The Jimenez no-no marked the third complete game of the day, an unusual occurrence in modern baseball. On Saturday, complete games were put in the books by Jimenez, Florida Marlin Ricky Nolasco — and Washington Nationals’ ace Livan Hernandez.

This is apparently the way that Nats end: not with a bang, but with a whimper. With seven games left in the season, the Atlanta Braves banged out thirteen hits against five Nats’ pitchers, victimizing Garrett Mock with seven hits and six runs in five innings of work. Mock, who has said he doesn’t pay attention to things like personal wins and losses, (or defensive gaffes – or his own ERA), began Saturday’s tilt against the Chops by allowing four runs in the first inning — a pattern of early innings futility that has become the sad norm amongst Washington’s young arms. It was all Braves thereafter, as Atlanta lumbered through an 11-5 win. Mock doesn’t pay attention to personal wins and losses? It’s a good thing: he’s now 3-10. With Washington losing nine of its last 11, it’s clear that the mounting losses are having an impact in the clubhouse — even this late in the season: ”I don’t like losing,” Nats’ slugger Adam Dunn said after the game. “I can’t really point a finger why we are losing. It’s very frustrating. I can’t put it into words. I hate it. I hate it. It’s not good.”

Those Are The Details, Now for the Headlines: Saturday’s marquee match-up pitted the N.L. Central’s Redbirds against the Colorado Rockies — and dominant Redbird righty Adam Wainwright against fireballer Ubaldo Jimenez. It was a must-win for the Rockies, who are looking in the rearview mirror at the Braves, who are now just 2.5 out of the Wild Card lead. Which is why the Saturday match-up was so important. Shockingly, the usually steady Ubaldo Jimenez was shaky out of the gate while (less surprisingly) Cy Young contender Adam Wainwright look untouchable. Jimenez lost his control in the first inning — giving up three runs, but the Rockies’ rallied late, tying the game at three in the fifth. It stayed that way until the 7th, when unlikely hero Jason LaRue deposited a hanging Jimenez slider in the left field seats. That’s all St. Louis needed to win: and clinch the division championship.

Is there a growing sense of panic on the rockpile? ” We’re still ahead,” Colorado manager Jim Tracy said after his team’s loss to the Cards. “We saw what the Cardinals just accomplished with their victory tonight, and if we keep going in the manner that we have the last couple of nights, I promise you that we’ll put ourselves in a very good position to maybe have a little celebration like that for ourselves.” Tracy is paid to be upbeat, but with Atlanta surging the Purple’s fans are beginning to show signs of gnawing doubt — and a feeling that the team is just not hitting (literally) on all cylinders. ”There is a perception around the league that all of the Rockies get hot and cold together and that’s why they’re prone to stretches where they can’t win followed by stretches that they can’t lose,” Rox Girl at Purple Row says. “While there’s a little truth to that, those of us that follow the team closely know that there are slumps within the machine even while it’s working well, as well as hot players churning along even when it’s not.”

All Things Rockies, meanwhile, notes that some key players are slumping — including bopper Brad Hawpe, who was recently lifted for former White Elephant Jason Giambi. Hawpe isn’t the only one who’s slumping. Colorado’s fleet-footed Nyjer-like centerfielder, Dexter Fowler is hitting a forgettable .267, an average that belies his recent struggles. Fowler, whose speed is wasted if he can’t get on base, looked positively overmatched on Saturday, going 0-4. Rockies’ manager Jim Tracy finally threw in the towel, pinch hitting for Fowler in the 9th. The Fowler stand-in against Redbird reliever Ryan Franklin was part time left fielder Seth Smith – and you have to wonder why Tracy isn’t using him more. Smith was the N.L. player of the week in early September, when Smith was positively on fire: in six games he hit .542 with four home runs, five doubles and ten RBIs. He posted a .607 OBP.

The Rockies and their fans would deny there’s any sense of panic (of course) and the even-keeled Jim Tracy waves off reporters who remind him that the Braves are closing fast. But there are those niggling little signs (familiar to Mets fans) that signal doubt: complaints about the perceived unfairness of umpire calls (the normally phlegmatic Tracy questioned the strike zone on Saturday), reassurances from players that their “rhythm is coming back” (as Rockies’ catcher Yorvit Torrealba would say), and complaints among diehards that, while the Rockies are facing the class of the National League, their chief competitor is in the midst of a series against an also-ran. This is vintage whine. And disturbing evidence that the Rockies have stopped searching for ways to win — and started issuing excuses.