There is a pattern here: when the Nats get hitting, they can’t seem to get pitching; and when they get pitching, their bats go silent. That pattern seemed particularly pertinent on Saturday, as the Nats frustrations with the lumber reached epic proportions — or perhaps it was the pitching of Chicago righty Jake Peavy. South Side Jake held Nats’ bats to just three hits, leading our home town nine to their fifth straight loss in a 1-0 skunking at Nationals Park. Peavy was absolutely masterful, better than he’s been since coming to Chicago in last year’s trade for young pitchers and the best he’s been for several years. Peavy threw 107 pitches, 71 for strikes. The closest the Nats came to scoring was in the 1st and the 9th, but the Nats left a runner stranded at second both times, squandering an opportunity to score.

The Nats’ nominee for futility infielder went to Ryan Zimmerman, who struck out four times against the Big Shoulder, who pitched his first complete game of the season. “Today I don’t know if Peavy beat me. He practically kicked my ass. But it’s going to happen,” Zimmerman said after the game. The Nats are now officially in a team slump: their internet site notes that the team has scored only 11 runs in the last five games — and struck out 51 times. Only Adam Dunn seems to be hitting the ball squarely. But it’s hard to blame the Nats for Saturday’s loss: Peavy looked like the Cy Young contender he was in San Diego. “It was pretty fun,” Peavy said. The White Sox are on a five game winning streak, and are 7-1 over their last eight games. They are only one game under .500 — putting them within striking distance of the division leading Minnesota Twins.

This wasn’t suppose to happen. When Baltimore Orioles’ owner Peter Angelos cast the sole dissenting vote against moving the Montreal franchise to Washington, D.C. — on December 3, 2004 –he was confident the new Nats would be as incompetently run as the old Expos. He had reason to be optimistic. The Nats of 2005 looked like an impoverished third world trustee: poor, and destined to stay that way. Not only had the Expos’ farm system been looted by MLB’s appointed overseers, the Nats’ new owners were a Selig-annointed tight-fisted bunch of bean counters who knew nothing about baseball. Selig’s strategy was clear: the last thing baseball needed was a winning franchise in Washington to muck-up baseball’s New York-Boston license-to-print-money axis of television revenues. As for Bud’s pal Peter — well, he could be paid off and then (pockets bulging with dough) praised for being one of MLB’s self-sacrificing boys. In that order. Angelos was only too happy to comply, imposing “the worst TV deal in all of sports” on the Lerners that was the equivalent of the requirements imposed by the IMF on a debt-ridden South American state. I swear. By the time the Nats took the field at RFK, the team looked like an Angelos step-child, to be brought out on occasion as proof of his all-American sacrifice, but never successful enough to be bragged about.

So, how’s Peter doing?

The Orioles are mired in one of their worst seasons ever, their fans are staying away in increasing numbers, Angelos has picked a fight with franchise legend Cal Ripken and the truce between the team owner and former Baltimore Sun beat writer Ken Rosenthal has broken down. Let’s start at the top. The O’s are 5-18 and sinking fast. Their best infielder (Brian Roberts) is injured, rising young star (Felix Pie) is out until at least June, the team has one (count ‘em, one) young good starter (Brian Matusz) and free agent starter Kevin Millwood is a bust. The bullpen is a disaster (expensive closer-to-be Mike Gonzalez is injured), and manager Dave Trembley’s post-game appearances are now watched by masochists who get their kicks by seeing middle aged men break into tears. The savior was supposed to be Andy MacPhail, who Angelos hired to be the O’s head of baseball operations, but the otherwise talented MacPhail is now apparently on the hot-seat, the result of the O’s April meltdown. “When a team continues to founder like this,” one Baltimore Sun beat writer opined, “eventually the mobs with the pitchforks and flaming torches show up at the front office and demand change.”

Ah . . .  well . . . “the mobs” are already there. Savvy Birds Watcher and influential Birds’ Blogger Nestor Aparicio, who led a 2006 fan-based “Free The Birds” movement (complete with black t-shirts and a walk-out of an O’s game), implies that while good ball clubs are “strong up the middle,” good franchises are strong at the top. Which is to say: the problems with the Orioles start not on the field, but in the front office — with Peter Angelos. “It’s hard to argue with the promise of Matt Wieters and Brian Matusz,” Aparicio recently wrote, “but virtually every other facet of the organization is still inflicted with the cancer of Peter Angelos and his values, strong will and old-world vindictiveness and deceit regarding everything from the banning of free speech in the media to jacking up ticket prices to taking away scalp-free zones to shunning the legends of the team’s heritage and brand.” Many, many others agree. B-More Birds Nest defines Angelos [pee-ter ~ ann-gel-ose] as “1) to ruin baseball, to make it uninteresting, 2) a lawyer who should be sued for false advertising, and 3) a d–che bag.”

For Nationals fans, the spiraling failure of one of baseball’s proudest franchises brings some odd solace, as well as a sense that the arc of the universe does (though rarely) bend towards justice. The Nats are no longer the mid-Atlantic’s orphans, the O’s no longer dominate the “we’ll show you how it’s done” tone of MASN “Battle of the Beltways” broadcasts and (compared to Angelos), the Lerners look absolutely enlightened. From top-to-bottom, the Nationals are the more competently run and better franchise. While O’s fans are busy plotting ways to walk away from baseball in Baltimore, the Nats are anticipating sell-outs for a revived team that has better pitching, hitting, speed and defense — and a closer who’s not on the DL. Think of it: five years after baseball’s step-child showed up at RFK, the premier baseball franchise in the region is not the Baltimore Orioles, it’s the Washington Nationals. But Nats’ fans shouldn’t be too proud, or too happy. Not only were we once the worst team in baseball, but the MASN deal means that Nats’ fans are actually subsidizing this mess.

The Nats must have one of the toughest early schedules in the major leagues: Phillies, Mets, Phillies (that’s six games against the Phillies in the first month), then the Brewers, Rockies, Dodgers and Cubs. With the exception of the Mets — and a single end-of-month game against the Marlins — the Nats will face-off against a top team every single day until May. Of course (as some fans will note), when you finish with 103 losses, every team looks tough. Even so. There’s two ways to look at this: Nats fans can say it’s “not fair” (a phrase popularized by four-year-olds), or we can look at these games as tests of just how good the Nats are against the league’s best. In the case of the Phillies, at least, the results seem clear. It’s not simply that the Nats are not as good as the Phillies (that’s obvious), to complete with them the Nats will need more pitching — and lots of it.

The Nats fell to the Ponies in Philadelphia yesterday and played them even, until “the killer P’s” unloosed their hitters. For Jason Marquis, who must have come up short when the staff drew straws before heading north, the second outing against the Phillies was only marginally better than his first. Frankly, it’s doubtful that Livan, who dominated the Mets on Sunday, could have done much better. The line-up of Polanco, Utley, Howard, Werth and Ibanez constitutes a latter-day murders’ row of lumber that would be daunting for an elite team — let alone the Nats. Even so, as a guy like Jim Riggleman will tell you, a competitive squad should be expected to play the Phillies tough. But so far that hasn’t happened. The lesson seems to be that once you have your boot on their neck, you don’t dare give in. “They are a balanced lineup,” Nats reliever Walker said. “They have some free swingers and have guys that will grind it out. The balance is what gets you, because they are going to be consistent every day. You give them an inch, they are going to take a mile. You give them an extra out, that’s when they really gear up. They know they can break your back.”

Andy MacPhail’s renovation project in Baltimore is making progress, though the pieces he’s added over the winter (signing Garrett Atkins was a great idea) aren’t likely to make a difference for the Orioles in the standings. At least not this year. It doesn’t help that steady-as-she-goes second sacker Brian Roberts pulled an abdominal muscle last night — and will be out for the next fifteen days. But the Orioles are coming back, if slowly, in part because MacPhail has cobbled together one of the best outfields in baseball: Adam Jones might be the best centerfielder in the game, Nolan Reimold is a surprise addition in left and Nick Markakis is becoming an established star. Even Felix Pie (above), the Cubs cast-off (you could say the same about MacPhail, come to think of it), is starting to hit, though his dinger last night against the Tampa Bay Whatevers didn’t keep the Orioles from losing — or falling to1-6 on the season.

“Overall, our pitching is doing a great job,” Markakis said after last night’s tilt. Really? You could have fooled me.The starting four of Kevin Millwood, Jeremy Guthrie, Brad Bergesen and Brian Matusz are just so-so, and closer Michael Gonzalez (brought in from the Braves as the real deal) looks terrified on the mound. The Orioles’ front office is hoping that semi-rookie Brian Matusz is the answer to the Orioles’ annual pitching woes, but he’s inexperienced. Matusz was an elite college pitcher (at the University of San Diego) with good velocity, and his trip through the minors was impressive. Signed by the Orioles in the same year that Washington failed to land Aaron Crow, Matusz is Baltimore’s  hope for the future, even if the future has yet to arrive. If there’s any good news at all, it’s not only that Matusz is unlikely to fail, but that rotation-mate Brad Bergesen has been a surprise. Drafted in the fourth round in 2004, Bergesen was 7-5 last year with a stellar 3.43 ERA. That’s two solid pitchers for the future. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the future will come only after Baltimore gets past a season with the savvy, but aging Millwood, and a bound-to-be-average Jeremy Guthrie.

None of this is cause to despair. While the future might take several years to arrive, Markakis, Jones, Reimold and Pie are fun to watch. If only they could pitch.