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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A regular reader of ours, an L.A. native, keeps pounding away about his beloved Dodgers — and like all good partisan fans, he predicted they’d win the N.L. West and then sweep their way through the post-season. “They’re the new Giants,” he said last April, “except that they’re better.”

Such expectations have not been realized: the Dodgers are a single game under .500, and are mired in third place on the left coast — well behind the disappointing Giants, and twelve games out of first place. This hasn’t stopped this fan from continuing his verbal assault. “Yeah,” he says. “But what about Clayton Kershaw? You have to admit, now, c’mon. Kershaw’s the best pitcher in the National League.”

Our tactic has been to ignore this, while reminding him of his April prediction — and what has happened in L.A. since. But at least when it comes to Kershaw, he has a point. If there’s one bit of good news that Nationals fans can take away from their most recent soggy series with the Trolleys (they lost two of three), it’s that at least they didn’t have to face Kershaw. And last night, against San Francisco, Kershaw put himself in the running for the Cy Young, outdueling the McCovey’s Tim Lincecum — and throwing an eight inning, three hit, nine strikeout gem.

Kershaw is now 18-5, and measures up well against the other hurlers in line for the Cy Young: Ian Kennedy, Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. The problem is that Kershaw plays for the Dodgers, which shouldn’t make the least bit of difference when it comes to the Cy Young voting — except that it will.

Even so, Kershaw should now be considered a front runner: while he doesn’t have the profile of Halladay, he leads the N.L. in strikeouts (ahead of Lincecum, Halladay, Lee and Kennedy — and in that order), and the fact that he plays for the L.A. Bankrupts could actually be in his favor. He’s pulled off a great season despite the team around him, and he leads the Nationals League in innings, ERA and strikeouts per nine.

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Jordan Zimmermann pitched solidly and steadily in the second game of a day-night doubleheader, but could not come away with a win, as the Washington Nationals dropped the third game of their set with the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3. Zimmermann threw six complete innings, and while he gave up eight hits and five runs, he kept the Nats in the game. The Cardinals Jaime Garcia and the St. Louis bullpen (thought to be the Redbirds’ weak spot), pitched better: holding the Nationals to five hits and one earned run.

The St. Louis hero was Houston retread Lance Berkman, who collected two singles, a double and two RBIs. Baseball fans remain skeptical of St. Louis skipper Tony LaRussa’s decision to set Berkman down in right field, but Berkman was been the spark for a slow-starting Cardinals’ offense. Last night’s win over the Anacostia Nine continued that early-season tradition: “The ball doesn’t know how old you are or how much experience you’ve got,” Berkman said after the victory. The Nats are set to take on the Cardinals again today, for the final game of their four game series.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The big news in baseball is Bud Selig’s decision that Major League Baseball will take control of the day-to-day running of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Trolleys are in a heap of trouble — with the owner looking for ways to meet the payroll. This is the second time in three seasons that this has happened: Major League Baseball took over the Rangers when its owner (Tom Hicks) ran up debts. The Texas team was then (in January of 2010) sold to a consortium of business people that included Nolan Ryan. That was last year — the year the Rangers surprised baseball and ended up in the World Series. It’d be nice if this turned out as well . . .

Don Mattingly says that the takeover doesn’t really concern the team, which still has to play well, no matter who’s in the front office. Maybe they will, but it doesn’t seem likely. The Dodgers have been doing just fine on the field — but they’re not the same team that Joe Torre took into the playoffs in 2009, and (honestly) that team (despite the 95 wins) wasn’t all that great. The difference then, particularly with just an average starting staff (Wolf, Billingsley, Kershaw, Kuroda — none of them won more than 12 games), was Torre, who stepped into retirement just as things headed south. We’re just saying . . .

So, where are the vaunted Dodgers? They have a team ERA of 4.66 (that’s fourteenth in the National League), are fourteenth in runs scored (well behind the Nationals, by the bye), and are tenth in team batting average. In the only stat that matters, they trail Colorado, San Francisco and Arizona in the N.L. West and are one-half game ahead of the Friars. Ugh. There are notable bright spots: Jon Garland is throwing ground ball outs (he made the Braves look sick last night), Clayton Kershaw is still one of the league’s premier lefties, Hiroki Kuroda has an ERA of 3.33 (and has turned into a downright frightening pitcher), Matt Kemp is hitting a torrid .426, and Andre Ethier is underrated (and batting .384). You would think Donnie could do something with that . . .

The key is probably Kemp — and for Trolley fans that’s definitely not good news. The outfielder is prone to forgetting exactly where he is and is hardly a clubhouse leader. We can put some of this down to his off-field distractions, which might have caused Kemp’s in-season troubles last year (faster than a speeding bullet, he stole 19 bases in 34 attempts . . . not great). Once upon a time former Dodger coach Larry Bowa (not exactly Sigmund Freud, is our bet) attempted to do an intervention with Matthew (something no one, we imagine, might want), but even that didn’t work. “He’s wound pretty tight,” Torre said of Kemp before departing L.A.

There’s a pattern here somewhere, let’s see if we can guess what it is. L.A.’s financial problems date from the owner’s very public divorce — with the team split between former husband and former wife. Frank (McCourt) even accused Jamie (McCourt) of having an affair, and fired her from her position with the team. Ugly. Really ugly. So ugly that it has spilled a lot of ink, ink better spent talking about runs and outs. There’s even a blog for Trolley fans called Dodger Divorce. And Kemp? Kemp’s 2010 spiral coincided with his focus elsewhere. Wags say, well . . . ah . . . they say that now that that’s done, Kemp can worry about baseball, instead of giving new meaning to the term “good with the stick.”

What a mess.

A heads-up Justin Maxwell stolen base followed by a Pete Orr fly ball to right field in the bottom of the ninth inning gave the Nats a 5-4 walk off win against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Nationals Park on Wednesday night. The Nats’ comeback win was sparked by a Ryan Zimmerman three run home run, a shot into the centerfield bullpen off Trolley righthander Chad Billingsley that tied the score at three. Billingsley was into the sixth and pitching a no-hitter until Zimmerman’s blast. It was Zimmerman’s 31st home run and 100th RBI of the season. The Nats went ahead 4-3 in the bottom of the eighth, but couldn’t keep the lead — as a shaky outing by closer Mike MacDougal and two Cristian Guzman throwing errors allowed the Dodgers to tie the game in the top of the 9th.

The Nats looked like they were headed for yet another anemic night at the plate, as Billingsley mastered the Anacostia line up with six innings of no hit baseball. But with runners on first and second in the sixth, the suddenly tiring Billingsley was visited by Dodger pitching coach Rick Honeycutt. On the very next pitch — with Zimmerman at the plate – the Dodger righty threw a ball that hung up-and-in on Zimmerman, and ended up over the fence. In all, Billingsley threw six innings, giving up only one hit. It was a masterful if vain performance by the 12-10 Dodger. Nats fans were pleased to discover that they’re not the only ones frustrated by poor defense. An eighth inning fly ball off the bat of Adam Dunn dropped between confused left fielder Manny Ramirez and centerfielder Matt Kemp, while a sure double play bouncer up the middle was thrown wide at first. The miscues sent the Nats into the top of the ninth with a one run lead and a chance to close out the game.

The Nats were actually lucky in the 9th, despite MacDougal’s keep-em-in-the-game pitching and their two errors: two line shots ended the inning with the bases jammed. The Dodgers were only able to score once in the top of the ninth, leaving the score tied at four. In the bottom of the final frame, Justin Maxwell hit a single past a diving Ronnie Belliard into left, was sacrificed to second by Alberto Gonzalez and then stole third. A surprised Trolley catcher Russell Martin threw wide of the bag at third to put Maxwell 90 feet from home. That brought journeyman Pete Orr to the plate. His long fly ball to right — dropped by the usually sure-handed Andre Ethier — won the game.

This is the second in a series of guest commentaries by “MH” — our regular guest columnist and erstwhile fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers . . .

Questions continue to surround the NL West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers, but one question in particular seems to haunt “dem bums”: are they really the best team in baseball, or a fluke that’s just waiting to collapse? The Dodgers’ stellar record would certainly seem to suggest they’re the best (if not in all of baseball, then certainly in the NL), but naysayers persist, claiming that the Dodgers are simply fortunate to be in the NL West – an “easy division.” Their suspicions seemed vindicated at the end of July, when the league-leading Dodgers headed east to face central division powerhouse St. Louis – where they won only one game of a four game set. The Trolleys were outscored in the series 22-8 (which included a 10-0 blowout), and their pitching looked simply mortal. The Dodgers were a paper tiger. At least that is what Dodgers skeptics would have you believe.

More than any other factor in the St. Louis series, defense was crucial. Both teams brought tightly wound starters, bullpens and formidable fielders. The Dodgers activated Hong-Chih Kuo from the DL, and he proved his worth on the Dodgers roster – which had recently suffered from the loss of both Corry Wade and Ronald Belisario. The L.A. bullpen seems to have weathered the worst that baseball (and injuries) can offer — and is now set for the final run to the flag. Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, and the Manny Ramirez-Juan Pierre duo combined to form a formidable defensive perimeter in all but the second game in the four-game series. The Cards saw the Dodgers defense and raised it an impressive batting staff – to the extent that game three of the four-game tilt was a fifteen-inning leviathan. There wasn’t much a hurting Dodgers bullpen could do to combat the Cards’ assault.

Crucial to the success of the Dodgers has been its pitching staff, and with the introduction of George Sherrill (a trading deadline addition from the Orioles), and the activation of Kuo, the pitching is likely to get a lot sharper. The emergence of Clayton Kershaw (who is what everyone wants — an overpowering lefty) has been crucial. And for those critics that saw in the Cards’ series an indication of the Dodgers’ raw skill — or lack of it — there is the Dodgers’ uncanny ability to add fresh blood from a pitching heavy farm system. Then too, while the L.A. nine seemed outclassed by the Redbirds in St. Louis, they have gone 4-4 since (which includes a rough road swing), lead the NL West by nearly seven games and remain the most dangerous team in the west. Are the Dodgers the best team in baseball? Maybe not, but they will bring the heat and the bats against any team they face in the regular and post-season. The emergence of superstar-to-be, Andre Ethier, the addition of Sherrill, the continued outstanding infield defensive play and the genius of Dodger manager Joe Torre will make sure of that.

now is the time