An early morning email to CFG seemed to say it all: “What a series. It makes me proud to be a Nats fan.” Indeed, Nationals fans have a right to be buoyant after sweeping a four game series from the Phillies. And in Philadelphia. Phillies fans felt the disappointment after dropping their sixth loss in a row (by a score of 6-1) — when it became clear that the Nats were on their way to a victory, they streamed from “the Bank,” issuing boos to their team.

“Our pitching is great. Our defense is great and we have timely hitting,” the Nationals Michale Morse said following the victory. “We had a lot of big hits. We had timely hitting this whole series. It shows you that we could play. We could be a big contender in this division coming up.”

The story of the game, once again, was what was happening to the resurgent Nationals on the mound. Indeed, the Nationals were only able to bang out seven hits against an effective Roy Oswalt. But it was Nationals’ pitching that won the game: rookie auditioner Brad Peacock threw 5.2 innings of one hit baseball — an extraordinary performance from a former Triple-A star who is now in the running as a potential fourth (or even third) starter in 2012.

“I had a lot of good pitches tonight,” Peacock said following his outing. “Everything was working. I just let them put the ball in play. My defense was great tonight. [Catcher Jesus Flores] called a great game. That’s all you can ask for. I didn’t shake him off one time — not once — because I trust him back there.”

The victory was not only the culmination of a four game series: it marked the tenth victory for the Nationals in eighteen meetings between the teams this year. And while the Phillies said they weren’t panicking, they were clear disturbed by the reaction of their fans.

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The Washington Nationals authored one of the great walk-off wins in the majors this season — coming from a four run deficit in the 9th inning to score five and beat the Seattle Mariners, 6-5. The rally was capped by a three run walk-off home run from Wilson Ramos on a change-up from Mariners’ relief pitcher David Pauley. “I was waiting on that pitch in that situation,” Ramos said following the victory. “I hit that ball pretty good. … I was very excited after I hit that ball for a home run. That was my first walk-off home run. So when I saw my teammates waiting for me at home plate, I was very excited.”

The victory came after a brilliant pitching performance from Mariners’ starter Doug Fister, who shut down the Anacostia Nine through eight innings. Fister was at the top of his form, allowing Washington just three hits through eight complete innings — with three strikeouts and just one walk. The Mariners, meanwhile, beat up on Washington starter Livan Hernandez, who couldn’t make it out of the 5th. But the Nationals’ bullpen did great work in keeping the Nats in the game, with Ryan Mattheus, Collin Balester and Todd Coffey holding the Mariners to no runs through five innings of work.

But the 9th inning will long be remembered by Nationals’ fans. The inning started with Jayson Werth reaching base on a Justin Smoak error, which was followed by a Roger Bernadina walk. With nobody out, Ryan Zimmerman grounded into a double play (his third of the game), putting Werth on third. With two outs, Jerry Hairston and Michael Morse singled, which put the Nats down 5-2.

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The Nationals seem to have recovered from their three game pasting in Philadelphia, winning their second straight against the Florida Fish and climbing back to within a game of .500. The hero of Saturday night’s 5-2 win was emerging ace lefty Tom Gorzelanny — and a host of slick nose-in-the-dirt plays behind him. The Nationals also banged out nine hits, including a badly needed two run first inning single from struggling first baseman Adam LaRoche.

Lefty Gorzelanny has hit his stride. The from-the-Cubs fifth starter has been one of the feel-good stories of the Nats’ 2011 season, emerging as a stopper at the back of the rotation. On Saturday he pitched through seven complete innings while giving up only two hits, befuddling Marlins’ hitters and relying on a snappy defense: right fielder Jayson Werth snuffed a potential Fish rally when he threw behind Mike Stanton in the sixth (catching him off of first base), while Danny Espinosa made three spectacular defensive plays, including a third inning catch of what should have been a Hanley Ramirez single.

The Fish face-off was notable for Gorzelanny, Espinosa, Werth and LaRoche — but also for Roger Bernadina, who has rejoined the club after regular center fielder Rick Ankiel went on the DL. Bernadina has injected some needed speed and excitement at the top of the Nats line-up. He was a spark plug on Saturday (you could almost hear Nats’ fans cheering) as he led off the first with a single, the first time a Nats’ lead off hitter has been in base in just about forever. Bernadina was 2-4 on the night, and Nats’ skipper Riggleman says he’ll get a good long look by the club.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The San Francisco-Colorado knock-down, drag-out continues apace in the Series By The Bay. The Giants took the second game of the three game set last night, with another walk off win against the Heltons (the second in as many days) on a game winning sacrifice fly from shortstop Mike Fontenot. This suddenly looks like a different team than the one that showed up in D.C. last week. The Giants have great pitching, but the key to their recent success has been the hitting of second sacker Freddy Sanchez, who was 3-5 last night and drove in the game-ending run the night before. You can almost hear Bruce Bochy’s sigh of relief all the way to Washington; the Giants are getting hits when they need them, which wasn’t true in April . . .

The disappointment in the early going for the Giants has been the strength they relied on all last year: their pitching. San Francisco’s pitching has been good, but not good enough, leaving a traditionally anemic batting order to scrape and claw for runs. Sounds familiar. Winderkind Madison Bumgarner has been the hard-luck case on the McCovey staff (last night’s outing seemed a replay of his May 2 outing against Tommy Gorzelanny), with the lefty pitching well, but not well enough. After wrestling with a stratospheric ERA in April, Bumgarner has settled down, though he just can’t seem to get a win. In predictable Crash Davis fashion, Bumgarner says he’s more interested in the team win:  “I don’t care if I don’t win a game all year if we win; if it works out like that, I don’t care,” he said following the victory.

The twin walk offs on two exciting games (you can watch them late-night if you have MLB Extra Innings, following a Nats victory in Florida, or wherever) has our California readers (we have some, and here they are) excited, with one of them writing about Sanchez’s heroics after the walk-off on Friday (“Freddy, Freddy, Freddy” — which sounds a whole lot better than “Fred, Fred, Fred”), which was followed by a raucous standing ovation for the home town heroes. The two wins against the Purples leave the Giants two games behind Colorado, with cash-strapped Los Angeles fading fast.

The San Francisco Giants are 27 outs from a World Series win, the first since the team moved from New York to the west coast. If Sunday night is any indication, the send-em-to-the-golf-course triumph will come as a result of stellar pitching and situational hitting: Giants specialities that have flummoxed (in turn) the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies and now, the Texas Rangers. Madison Bumgarner is the latest example of how the Giants have dominated the series — throwing 8 innings of three hit baseball (106 pitches, 69 strikes) in shutting down a potent Rangers’ offense. Bumgarner was nearly unhittable, becoming the fifth youngest pitcher in baseball history (21 years and 91 days) to start in the Fall Classic. “He was as good as I’ve seen him,” San Francisco catcher Buster Posey said after the win. “He was in and out, really. The first couple of innings he might have yanked a couple of fastballs, but after that he was unreal.”

The Rangers, stymied by San Francisco’s arms (Bumgarner struck out Vlad Guerrero three times and Michael Young twice), will attempt to get back into the series on Monday by sending uber ace Cliff Lee to the mound to face-off against Tim Lincecum. So while a Giants’ win in the Series is far from guaranteed, San Francisco has to be confident that it can do to Lee what it did on Sunday to Tommy Hunter — and last week to the Rangers’ bullpen. And yet, Texas sounded anything but confident. “We still have to find a way to score runs,” Texas third sacker Michael Young (.250 for the series), said after the Bumgarner outing. Young’s view was seconded by Nelson Cruz — who’s hitting a Willie Harris-like .188 against Giants’ pitching: “We need more hits and more people on base.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Not only is San Francisco’s pitching good, it’s home grown. Tim Lincecum was a 2006 (tenth overall) San Francisco draft pick, Matt Cain was selected by the Giants in the first round (25th overall) in 2002, Jonathan Sanchez was picked up by the Gigantes in the 27th round in 2004 and Madison Bumgarner was a Brian Sabean favorite in 2007 — when he was drafted tenth overall. It’s the first home-grown rotation to reach the World Series since 1986, when Boston trotted out Bruce Hurst, Roger Clemens, Oil Can Boyd and Al Nipper to face the New York Mets. The San Francisco model (draft pitching, buy hitting) is followed throughout baseball, but few teams have had as much success in following it as the Giants. The Giants follow two other principles: they don’t dilly dally in moving their best young arms to the majors (Lincecum and Bumgarner each spent two years in the minors), and they don’t trade them for hitting — Sabean pushed aside a proposed Lincecum for Alex Rios deal, turned down a Cain for Prince Fielder deal and spurned numerous suitors (including your Washington Nationals) for Jonathan Sanchez . . .

The Norris Nine? We’ve received a ton of mail from readers following up on our little ditty about proposed Texas Rangers’ nicknames. One reader divided his list into two parts — “old ones” and “new ones.” Among the old: the “Spurs” (an old Dallas-Ft. Worth baseball team), the “Strangers” (a 1970s nickname given the Rangers because of their relocation from D.C.), and the “Hambones” — which is Josh Hamilton’s nickname. Hmmmm. This reader lists as new ones the “Ex-Senators,” the “Re-Arrangers,” and “the Bushies.” This last makes sense, given the prominence of the Bush family, who have found themselves (with Nolan Ryan), in camera range during the Series. But the best nominee from this (anonymous) reader is “The Texas Walkers,” named for the “Walker, Texas Ranger” television series, starring (quick intake of breath) Chuck Norris. This has potential (this reader implies), because it can be morphed into “The Norris Nine” — which has a certain ring. This regular CFG reader (and who isn’t) isn’t the first fan to put the Rangers together with the aging kick boxer. Back in August of 2009, when the Rangers were contending for a Wild Card spot with the Boston Pedroia’s, a Red Sox fan (with entirely too much time on his hands), gave us this . . .

Just  two games ago it was possible to think good things about the Nats. They had taken two of three from a very tough San Diego team and grabbed an easy first game in a three game set against the Giants. And the Nats were beginning to hit. The toughest teams of the west seemed suddenly vulnerable to a line-up filled with a hot home run hitter (in Adam Dunn), a suddenly tough pitching staff (headlined by Stephen Strasburg) and a revived bullpen (with solid arms Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard and Matt Capps). But successive losses — one in which the bullpen collapsed and another in which steady Livan Hernandez was anything but — have put a cloud over the Nats’ first half and sparked continued speculation about whether the team will make major moves as the trading deadline approaches. Even Nats’ skipper Jim Riggleman, ever the optimist, seemed puzzled (we just have to find a way to play better, he said after the second loss to the McCoveys), while Mike Rizzo evinced some disappointment: “I think we have underachieved a little bit, and I don’t think we played as good as I think we can. I’m looking forward to a better second half.”

While successive losses to the Giants ended the symbolic first half of the season on a low note, the team’s improvement has been undeniable: Stephan Strasburg has arrived (and he’s here to stay), Adam Dunn has emerged as a team and fan favorite (with unacknowledged defensive improvements at first base), the team remains relatively healthy (the notable exceptions being Scott Olsen and Jason Marquis), the bullpen has been sure and steady (in spite of the recent setbacks), Ian Desmond has proven he can hit major league pitching (okay, he’ll need to field major league hitting), and (surprise, surprise) Roger Bernadina has shown he can play with the big guys. There are disappointments — Nyjer Morgan has not been the spark plug he was last year, the team remains unaccountably soft on defense and no single starter has emerged to complement Strasburg and Hernandez. Oh, and the team is in last place in the NL East.

Amidst the talk of trades (Dunn for whomever, prospects and a bat for Haren, a pocket of maybes for a middling arm) — and front office prayers for the return of someone, somehow (Marquis in July, Zimmermann in August, Olsen sometime) — it’s hard to know just what would vault the team into contention. Magic wands seem out of reach and blockbusters rarely happen to teams whose farm system is still so-so. Mike Rizzo might be willing to swap three or four of the system’s top prospects, but none of them seem major league ready. They’d be here if they were. And there’s this: while Zimmerman, Dunn and Willingham seem a fine 3-4-5 combination and are good friends to boot (and no one but no one wants to see them broken up), it’s hard to defend a combo that, for all it’s power, fails to plant a stake in the heart of an on-the-ropes Jonathan Sanchez or a wet-behind-the-curve newbie like Madison Bumgarner. Mike Rizzo says that he is looking forward to a better second half. So are we. But contending is another major bat and another good starter (and, truth be told, at least another half season) away.