Cole Hamels pitched his first complete game of the season, shutting down the Washington Nationals and besting Livan Hernandez, giving the Philadelphia Phillies a 4-1 victory at Citizens Bank Park. The sole run scored by the Nationals came off the bat of Michael Morse, who put a Hamels’ offering into the right field seats. Hamels was the Philadelphia hero on a night when Phillies fans welcomed Jayson Werth back to Philadelphia with a mix of cheers and boos.

The Hamels masterpiece should not have come as a surprise. The Phillies’ lefty is 9-0 in his last nine starts against the Anacostia Nine, with a 2.73 ERA. “Hamels was the story, he was really good again, hitting his spots with his fastball,” Nats’ skipper Jim Riggleman said following the game. “It’s a good fastball, but he had a good changeup, as he always does.”

In The Valley of the Lost Bats: For the first time this season, MASN commenters F.P. Santangelo and Bob Carpenter wondered aloud what would happen to Danny Espinosa if his struggles at the plate continue. It’s possible that Riggleman could sit the second sacker, putting Jerry Hairston at second. Espinosa is hitting .219 and has struck out ten times in the last 10 games . . . The comment was telling. Back on April 22, Carpenter was asking where the Nats’ offense would be without Espinosa. Now he’s wondering if the kid can get back on track . . .

But if you’re going to sit Espinosa, you’d also have to sit Adam LaRoche, whose troubles at the plate make Espinosa look like Ruth. LaRoche is 0-17 in his last six games, his last hit coming on April 27 against the Mets. Then too, if you’re going to sit Espinosa, you’d have to swallow hard in defending Jerry Hairston as the heir — Hairston is not exactly hitting the ball on the screws: he’s  7-33 in the last ten games. Hairston is a good ballplayer, but he’s not DiMaggio. His lifetime BA is .256 . . .

And while we hate to say “we told ya so,” a little Alberto Gonzalez medicine would look good right now. The MASN boys regularly laid into Gonzalez for not being able to put the bat on the ball, but last year he hit better than either Desmond or Espinosa are hitting right now. Sure, Alberto didn’t like his part time gig in D.C., and it was time for him to head out. But it would be nice to see him at third now that Ryan Zimmerman is down. Then again . . . Alberto isn’t hitting the leather off the sphere for the Friars. After a good start, he’s hitting a torrid .172, and the Padres have settled into an infield of Jorge Cantu, Jason Bartlett, Orlando Hudson and Brad Hawpe, with Alberto on the bench . . . San Diego’s infield is (admittedly) mere filler, but not all that bad when you think about it . . .

Alberto Gonzalez isn’t the only former D.C. batsman who’s struggling at the plate. Pale Hose acquisition Adam Dunn has been almost embarrassing in Chicago, where he’s having problems acclimating himself to his role as a designated hitter. “What’s Wrong With Adam Dunn?” FanGraphs asked yesterday. Dunn is hitting a measly .157 in Chicago and looks terrible at the plate. Last night, he was the final batter faced by Francisco Liriano in his no hitter, lining out to end the game. “There are three reasons why Dunn is struggling so far,” FanGraphs says. He is having bad luck, “he has not found his power stroke,” and “his strikeouts are up.”

We love FanGraphs, but that doesn’t tell you a whole lot: the reason Adam Dunn is hitting poorly is because he’s hitting poorly. Right. The question is: why is he hitting poorly? The answer may well be that Dunn has not mastered the intangibles of the D.H., which requires you to be in the game and ready to play despite the fact that you sit the bench. D.H.-ing is a lot like entering the line-up as a pinch hitter four times a game; it takes real discipline to do it well. Dunn hasn’t developed that discipline yet, or he wouldn’t be hitting .157 — and the Chicago South Siders would look like contenders, instead of bums. Which, at 11 and 20, is . . . what . . .  they . . .  are.

That leash you see dragging on the ground behind Rob Dibble? That’s the leash his wife has on him. And that collar? She put it there too. Listen, we don’t know anything about Rob Dibble (not a damn thing, honest), but the droogs who write for this blog (and just for the record, here we — all males — are) have a sense about these things. And our sense is that we’ve heard just enough from Rob Dibble himself during his MASN broadcasts to conclude that his wife (a teacher, he says), knows him well enough to understand his irritating little foibles. And (we’re also sure — based on our own experience) to endlessly and grindingly try to correct them. So when “Taliban Rob” lowered the boom on some female Nats fans the other night during a MASN game broadcast (“Those ladies right behind there, they haven’t stopped talking the whole game”), our hunch (and believe us, we oughta know), was that Mrs. Dibble probably lowered the boom on him. She wasn’t alone.

Dan Steinberg leaped on Dibble about his comments, which included one of those in-game graphics — where Dibble circled the women and noted that “they have some conversation going on. Right here. There must be a sale tomorrow going on here or something . . . Their husbands are going man, don’t bring your wife next time.” Ugh. Steinberg seemed to relish Dibble’s gaffe (all of four days ago now), and touched on it again this morning, when he noted that Dibble had issued an apology. Of course, as Mrs. Dibble will surely tell her chagrined husband, that is certainly not the end of it. She’d be right: Nationals Fangirls are all revved up about Dib’s comments (or “fired up,” as the case may be), issuing a broadside about Dibble’s “sexist, misogynistic” ideas. We’re fans of Nationals Fangirls (we actually read them, and regularly) and can’t take issue with them, except for their added, unnecessary and interesting (as in “it’s interesting they would commit the same gaffe”) comment that maybe Dib’s wife “helped feed the stereotype.” And then, one of the fangirls added this: ” . . . but perhaps I shouldn’t say that. I’m sure she’s very pretty.” Ah yeah, now we get it: pretty women can’t think. Groooowwwwww, phtttt.

Listen, we’re not exactly drum beating fans of Rob Dibble (we find his endless talk of how “these guys have to learn they’re competing for jobs” pretty tiresome), but maybe (just maybe) it’s time for a little perspective. Dibble issued an apology and it sounds to us like he was sincere. Then too, Rob Dibble’s repetition of a common stereotype hardly makes him a scimitar wielding Taliban leader; frankly, it’s a stretch to say he’s “misogynistic” — a crime that ought to denote something a  bit more loutish than the rather banal opinion that women go shopping. Rob Dibble as Mullah Omar? C’mon. But really (really) what we’re most afraid of is that the Dib’s gaffe will send the Nats’ front office into a search for a more appropriate but far more nauseating voice. Like Don “I Love America The Beautiful” Sutton or Ron “where the hell am I” Darling.

And there’s this. For all of his faults, Dibble beats the daylights out of the ever popular Steve Czaban and sidekick Andy Pollin, who make book on saying that men who don’t weigh 350 pounds and play left tackle “wear skirts” — a phrase that’s more offensive than anything Dibble has ever, ever said. No one has ever complained about them, perhaps because they do it so often if confirms their lack of even a minimal middlebrow intelligence (“this quote is from George Bernard Shaw, ever heard of him?” Pollin once asked “the Czabe” — and guess what . . . ). Then too, unlike Czabe and the crew (who sound like they actually hate baseball — and want the Nats to fail), Dibble not only knows about the game he’s covering, he actually once played it.

Apology accepted.

Adam Dunn — the pride of Porter, Texas — is finally starting to get the attention he deserves. And it’s long overdue. The Nationals’ first baseman’s two home run, six RBI outing against the Trolleys in Los Angeles was the talk of baseball on Friday night. The “cavalcade of stars” on Baseball Tonight and the whoop-happy crew on MLBN’s late night offering (Plesac and Williams) spun up Dunn’s “Moon shots” in Dodger Stadum again and again. We can only hope the former Redleg and D-Back great is enjoying it. Ignored in the first round of the amateur draft, the victim of unfair criticism at the hands of a flap-mouthed former G.M., traded from team-to-team for younger unproven players, passed over for the 2010 All Star game and regularly relegated to second tier attention behind Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard (among others), Dunn is slowly laying claim to being one of the game’s elite players. Certainly Dunn’s skipper, Jim Riggleman thinks so.

In the aftermath of Friday’s derailing of the Dodgers in L.A., Riggleman dissected Dunn’s at-bats, shaking his head in wonder: “What Adam did out there today, that’s really some big stuff because [L.A. starter Clayton] Kershaw has been really tough on everybody, particularly tough on left-handers,” Riggleman said. “For Adam to do that against him a couple of times in that ballgame, you are not going to see that too often against Kershaw.” But it was MASN play-by-play guy Bob Carpenter who said it best. “If Adam Dunn appears hunched over it’s because he’s carrying the Washington Nationals on his back,” he said. “And he can do it.” Dunn, meanwhile, underplayed his accomplishment, focusing instead on Kershaw.”He is not one of my top pitchers to face. I can tell you that,” he said. “He is really good. Look at his numbers. He is really good. He is only going to get better. How old is he? Twelve, 13? He is only going to get better.” Dunn’s night was complemented by a solid outing from John Lannan and a tough defense, which included a diving catch in centerfield from recent call-up Justin Maxwell. The Nationals will face off against the Dodgers again tonight in L.A. before wrapping up the series on Sunday.

DWilly’s piece yesterday about the Red Sox was right on the money: their age is showing. I’ve been looking for a word that describes their play since the All Star break and I’ve had a difficult time coming up with just the right moniker. Then, this morning, I read a piece in the New York Times on the Sox newest Japanese import Junichi Tazawa and there it was: “wheezing.”  Perfect. Their batting averages show it precisely. The Red Sox top four guys are hitting .297, .300, .292 and .308.  After that the averages fall off, with their eight- and nine-slotted guys (Varitek and Gonzalez) not hitting their weight — at .222 and .210 respectively. Combine that with a two man rotation and you get what you get.

It is a truism that this not the ’04 ball club. There is no “Cowboy Up” talk and no emotional sparkplug. There is no Kevin Millar. The oldest guy in the Sox lineup that year was third baseman Bill Mueller, who was 33.  Today Varitek is 37, third sacker Mike Lowell is 35 (both, shown below, in the ’07 series) and two other guys are 33. Not the geriatric ward but no spring chickens either. But there is one similarity with the ’04 club. Today the Sox are 70 – 52, 6.5 games behind the Yanks. On this day five years ago they were in a similar position: 70 – 53, 6.5 games behind the Empire. The Sox finished the ’04 campaign with 98 wins, which is .700 baseball.  But without a bottom half of the lineup and a beat up pitching staff it’ll be quite a feat to match their ’04 glory.

MASN commentator Rob Dibble was even more outspoken than usual during the second half of Houston’s pasting of the Nats last night. “I think some of these guys are mailing it in,” he said during the seventh inning of Washington’s 9-4 embarrassment. “It’s pathetic,” he said at another point. Dibble’s comments are now the talk of the blogosphere, including a long article on his comments on D.C. Sports Blog — which reviewed color analyst Ray Knight’s post-game response to some of Dibble’s charges. At first, it seemed, Knight was unwilling to associate himself with Dib’s criticisms but, after hearing him out, issued his own blistering attack. “You know what I would do? I’d clean house,” Knight said. “When guys don’t make plays defensively I’d sit ‘em on the bench. I’d give a guy a chance to play. And I’m talking about for a week, I don’t care if you’re hitting .320, I don’t care what you’re doing, I’m tired of seeing it too. We’re just two former players that busted our butts, and we’re here working for a company that you expect a fine product.”

Neither Dibble nor Knight blamed Manny Acta or the team’s coaches for the team’s weakness. ”I know Manny Acta and I know these coaches are busting their butts to get the most out of these guys, but the players, they don’t expect that out of each other in that locker room,” Dibble said. “That’s what I’m saying. Somebody needs to point a finger in there and say, ‘Enough’s enough. You guys are on my team, you’ve got to go out there and back me up.’ John Lannan deserved better out of his bullpen, he deserves better defensively, and he definitely damn well deserves better offensively after what he’s done the last six outings on a bad ballclub . . . So for me to watch a guy like John Lannan, who I think has a huge heart, and he goes out there, he never mails it in, I think there’s a lot of guys who should apologize to him.”

In retrospect, while Dibble’s and Knight’s comments seemed aimed at the entire team, they came in the aftermath of a yet another particularly sloppy game by Washington shortstop Cristian Guzman, whose year long indifferent fielding continues to hurt Nats’ starters. This is the second time that Dibble has focused his attention on the Nats’ shortstop — the first being in Colorado when Guzman booted a ground ball that hit his ankle. Knight didn’t need any more clues: “I don’t know who exactly you’re feeling it about,” Knight said. “I’m feeling it about certain people. But Manny has to make that decisions, or [Mike] Rizzo. If you think that there’s a player out there not defining the position . . . Take shortstop. Balls are going up the middle, knocked down, erratic type play. It looks like, to me, Goozie’s mind is somewhere else. He’s the guy I’m most disappointed in.”

Dibble and Knight’s comments are significant. Both men are not only former highly regarded ballplayers, both feel a part of the Nationals’ organization. Dibble regularly refers to himself as a part of the Nats’ team (“we’ve just got to do better”) and Knight has gone out of his way to get to know players and coaches. Unlike former MASN analyst Don Sutton (who departed when a broadcasting slot came open elsewhere), neither are looking at their MASN work as a launching pad to stardom. More specifically, while the new “nasty boys” tandem of Dibble and Knight have said that “Manny has to make that decision, or Rizzo” — their comments are a direct challenge to the Nats’ front office: if you’re going to get rid of lazy players, you might want to start with ”Goozie.”

It’s not hard to figure out who might need Guzman. The ten year veteran has a sharp bat and has been in the thick of a pennant race before — with Minnesota in ’02, ’03 and ’04, years in which the Twinkies reached the off-season. Guzman seemed to feed off the Twins’ success, registering just 12, 11, and 12 errors respectively during that time. Teams in contention and shopping for a shortstop are likely to see Guzman’s glove work in Washington (where he’s accumulated twelve errors already) as a result of playing for a last place team. A team like the Seattle Mariners, for instance, might find Guzman’s bat a plus in any run-to-the-division title. While the Mariners’ claim they’re satisfied with Ronny Cedeno’s play up-the-middle, the former Cub is hitting just .149. Cedeno would do better with full time work: he only saw action while subbing for regular shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt, who was rehabbing a strained left hamstring.

Even if Cedeno stays in Seattle, Betancourt is available. After returning from his rehab, Betancourt was shifted to second (he had never played there before), before being put back on the bench — fueling rumors that he was headed out of town. A straight-up swap of dissatisfied shortstops might appeal to Seattle, whether the trade involved Cedeno or the 27-year old Betancourt. It is well-known that the Mariners’ have been discussing Betancourt with the Pirates, but given the Knight-Dibble rebellion, the Nats might think about getting into the mix. While Dibble thinks that Guzman should be benched in favor of Alberto Gonzalez, the young Venezuelan has not proven he’s a slick fielder, with six errors in 21 games this year. Either Cedeno or Betancourt would be a step up — even if the Nats had to fork over some extra dollars to swing the deal: Guzman is owed $8 million for 2010 while Betancourt (a better and younger player) is in the second year of a four year $13.75 million contract.