If you watched Tim Kurkjian last night on ESPN, then you know just how close he came to an on-air myocardial infarction. In the history of the game, he said, what viewers just saw was history — the best night of baseball ever of any regular season. The best, as he repeated, in 200,000 games. In fact, he’s right — it might well have been.

Unless, of course, you’re a fan of either the Boston Red Sox or Atlanta Braves. For both of those clubs, and their fans, the “night to remember” was a belly-up sinking that compared with the loss of the “unsinkable” Titanic: it just wasn’t supposed to happen. Fans will focus on the Red Sox, of course, but down in Atlanta the despair was as keenly felt. You only have so many shots at this, and this may be one of the Braves’ last.

“When you’re in a slump as a team, you find a bunch of different ways to lose,” third baseman Chipper Jones said after the Bravos dropped a nail biter to the Phillies. “Bats go silent. You get wild on the mound. You walk in runs. You find different ways to lose and we sure did over the past couple weeks.”

Okay. But still — the most improbable of improbables was not the Braves loss to Philadelphia (let alone the Redbirds whitewashing of the Astros), or even the fact that somehow the Tampa Bay Rays came back to take a 12 inning victory from the Yankees, but Baltimore’s epic ninth inning walk off victory against the Nation. “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” the unsinkable Molly Brown said as she saw the Titanic go down, stern first.

And that’s what we all said, last night, when Robert Andino put a Jonathan Papelbon offering just off the glove of Carl Crawford in left field to score Noland Reimold and give the Orioles (the Orioles!) a walk-off 4-3 win in Baltimore. There’s a reason why fans keep their mouths shut when they’re watching a no-hitter in the ninth, just as there’s a reason why you don’t pitch Tim Wakefield eight times in the middle of a divisional race just so he can get his 200th win. (What the hell were they thinking?)

Here’s some other things you don’t ever do, no matter what. You don’t calculate that you have an inside shot just because the Rays are playing the Yankees, you don’t headline that you have “the best team ever” at the beginning of a season, you don’t describe the Iraqi insurgents as “pushovers” — and you don’t call a ship unsinkable when it’s sitting in Belfast Harbor: you don’t flirt with icebergs.

So . . . so don’t rewrite the rules. They remain, the rules. You don’t tempt fate, which is what the Red Sox did all of September, and it’s what they did last night. It’s call hubris, and it’s been around since Homer. “I’m pretty shocked,” Red Sox arm John Lester said. “Not only with the Rays game, but in our game, we’ve got the best closer in baseball. That stuff doesn’t happen to him.” Oh, c’mon. Sure it does.  This is baseball.

Washington Nationals rookie Brad Peacock pitched five complete innings, shutting down the New York Mets — and giving the Nationals a 2-0 shutout win (their fourth victory in a row) at Citi Field in New York. Peacock, one of a passel of arms in Washington’s pitching-heavy farm system, threw 94 pitches, 61 of them for strikes in his first start, and his first win, in the major leagues.

“To tell you the truth, I thought I was going to be nervous, but just like my last outing, once I made that first pitch, I was fine,” Peacock said, following the victory. “I made sure I took deep breaths out there. I settled in nicely.” Nats’s skipper Davey Johnson praised the young righty’s approach. “I was real impressed,” Johnson said. “He showed a lot of poise. He didn’t get flustered.”

The Nationals scored their only runs of the game in the top of the 3rd inning on a fielding error from David Wright. With Ian Desmond on first, Ryan Zimmerman was given a free pass, after which Michael Morse and Jayson Werth singled. Desmond and Zimmerman scored in the inning. That was all that Washington would need.

The Washington bullpen was again impressive. Former starter Tom Gorzelanny shut down the Mets in two complete innings, Tyler Clippard registered his 34th hold, and Drew Storen came on in the ninth inning to notch his 37th save. Gorzelanny was particularly effective, and has been so over the last ten games, lowering his ERA from 4.50 to 4.13.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Peacock throws a knuckle curve, though it’s reportedly more of a “spike” curve of the type thrown by Cliff Lee and Dan Haren, than a knuckling curveball that was used by Mike Mussina. But Peacock throws it more regularly than either Lee or Haren. The knuckle curve creator (though there is strong disagreement on this point), was Chicago’s Burt Hooton, back in the early 1970s . . .

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This was a Hail Mary pass if ever there was one. When Mike Rizzo signed Chien-Ming Wang back in February of 2010, there was absolutely no reason to believe that he would someday once again pitch in the majors. Wang was then rehabbing from right shoulder surgery, but it was worse than that: his shoulder was shredded. It was thought then that he could pitch by May of that year: it took him another fourteen months, an extended rehab assignment in the minors and two lousy outings.

But “the Michael Jordan of Taiwan” (as Rizzo described him then), is apparently now all the way back, though baseball gurus say that his shoulder still hurts when he throws a slider. Never mind: he only needs his sinker, as he proved against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday, throwing six complete innings while giving up only a single hit. Wang’s outing (and homers by Michael Morse and Jonny Gomes) allowed the Nats to best the Cubs at Wrigley Field, 3-1.

Wang was the story of the night. The righty threw 81 pitches, 53 of them for strikes. More importantly, his sinker was working. The former Yankee Cy Young candidate registered eleven groundouts, issued only two walks and struck out one. Unlike his first two outings with the Washington Nine, he was never really in danger.

The return of Wang might be the best late-season news the Nationals have ever had — he symbolizes another solid arm in the mix for 2012 (is there really any question he’ll return?), that will include Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann and John Lannan. A Strasburg-Zimmermann-Lannan-Wang rotation (if all are healthy) would give Washington one of the best front fours in the game. The Nationals must be ecstatic: “Real nice job. Outstanding,” pitching coach Steve McCatty said.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The North Side Drama Queens are in the middle of a revival of sorts. Prior to Tuesday’s loss to the Nationals, the Cubs had won seven in a row, including a sweep of the Pirates. Don’t let that fool you, the streak only provided hope where little exists . . .

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We’ll just bet that Yankees are happy they didn’t trade Robinson Cano — but they tried. Cano was offered to the Texas Rangers in the deal for Alex Rodriguez in 2004, but the Rangers took a pass. The Yankees then tried to trade him for Kansas City’s Carlos Beltran, (passing through KC on your way to stardom is almost a requirement), but he went to Houston instead. Then Cano was offered back to Texas for Randy Johnson. They got another “no.” It’s almost as if the Yankees didn’t want him, or maybe wanted someone else more.

You have to wonder why. As Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have aged, Cano has emerged as the glue in the Yankees’ infield. He won a Gold Glove last year (along with a Silver Slugger, his second), and he’ll probably win another one in 2011. Cano is in his seventh season with a career BA of .308, and he just came off a season when he hit 29 home runs — and he’s on a pace to equal that this year. It’s never been a surprise that he’s had a kind of relaxed power, so those who know say it’s not a big shock that he won last night’s Home Run Derby.

Yankees fans aver that second has been the weakest position in team history. That may be, but Tony Lazzeri, who played for the Yankees for twelve years (from 1926 through 1937) was a steady and an elegant presence. He was a kind of merry prankster, which is reflected in photos of him. He hit for power (the first major leaguer to hit two grand slams in one game), and was one of the best clutch hitters of his time. In any other city and on any other team, they would have carried Lazzari through the streets on their shoulders. He was sandwiched between the Yankee greats (much like Cano), which is too bad: what a player.

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Ubaldo Jimenez looked like his old self on Saturday night, holding the Nationals to just five hits and one run in eight innings — and notching a 2-1 win for his Colorado Rockies. Jimenez, who is suffering through a 4-8 season and an unusually high (4.14) ERA, looked like the Ubaldo Jimenez of last year, when his up-in-the-eyes fastball was the talk of the league. The Nationals loss, meanwhile, squandered a solid outing from former Rockies’ hurler Jason Marquis, who toughed out six innings, giving up two runs to the often run-starved Heltons.

Despite Jimenez’s dazzling performance, the Nationals were within 90 feet of tying the game and a long bomb away from winning it. But slumping star Jayson Werth couldn’t keep the ball out of the glove of shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who turned a double play to end the game. Werth, who is mired in a season-long slump, has been booed by Nationals’ fans this year, but no more so than on Saturday, as he stood beyond first after hitting into his game ending double play.

But for Washington, the problem was not Werth — it was the Rockies’ staring pitcher. “He’s filthy,” Johnson said of Jimenez. “He’s one of the best pitchers in the league. We’ve been swinging the bats pretty good, but he calmed us down quite a bit. I think we outhit them, just couldn’t score.”

The Nationals loss marked their third loss in a row — all of them by one run. That mini-streak had been preceded by three wins, all of them also by one run. “Right now, we’re living and dying by the one-run game,” shortstop Ian Desmond, who was 2-3 with a triple, noted. “These one-run games are just flukes. It’s one of those things, but it will turn around for us.”

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You can understand why some baseball writers never particularly liked Bert Blyleven. “I’m not going to kiss the asses of the writers,” Blyleven said a few years back. “I put numbers up that are Hall of Fame numbers. Until they recognize that, you can only look at January 6th and say ‘it’s another year.’” Well, it’s now January 6 — and Blyleven is finally in the Hall of Fame. The announcement came yesterday as Blyleven (this was his fourteenth time on the ballot) and second sacker Roberto Alomar (who was picked on 90 percent of the ballots) were elected to the Hall and will be inducted in July. There’s been a continuing and surprising argument over Blyleven’s qualifications, but there’s never been any question (or, at least, we think so) over his abilities. The most compelling “case for” was made in December 2004 by Rich Lederer, who quoted Blyleven critics as giving three reasons why the slick righty “didn’t belong”: he didn’t win a Cy Young award, he wasn’t a dominant pitcher in his era — and he wasn’t any better than Tommy John or Jim Kaat. Lederer demolished these arguments.

Blyleven’s stats are impressive. He’s tied for sixth all-time in the number of 200-strikeout seasons, is ninth in career shutouts, is fifth all-time in career strike outs (who would have guessed that), was third most on the day he retired (behind Nolan Ryan and Walter Johnson), won 38 1-0 ball games, and has stats similar to Don Sutton, Gaylord Perry, Ferguson Jenkins, Tom Seaver and Early Wynn — all of whom are in the Hall. Longevity is always an important, if incomplete, “metric” of pitching solidity, and Blyleven had it: 22 seasons, a 3.31. ERA. He was in the top ten in strikeouts in 14 seasons and was in the top ten in innings pitched in 11 — in two of those seasons he led his league. The question is not whether Blyleven deserves to be in the Hall, but why he wasn’t in sooner. Oddly, perhaps, I’d pick 1985 as his best season, even though he was traded by Cleveland to Minnesota that year: he threw in 37 games, completed 24 of them, and led the league in innings pitched and strikeouts.

So why did it take Blyleven fourteen years to reach the Hall? My sense is that if Blyleven had played in New York (or even Oakland), he wouldn’t have had to wait so long. This has nothing to do with “big team, big city” preferences (well, as least I don’t think so) — but rather to that fact that Blyleven consistently pitched for mediocre teams and received terrible run support. As one statistician has noted: from 1970 to 1977, Blyleven notched 82 quality starts (two earned runs or less in six innings, three earned runs or less in 7, 8, or 9 innings — 4 earned runs or less in 9+). In those starts he compiled a 2.19 ERA. His record? 0-53! In 1974, for instance, Blyleven (17-17 for the year) was 17-9 in 27 games and 0-8 in the others. In those 0-8 games he posted an ERA of 1.80. It would be tough to run those numbers over all of baseball’s pitchers post-1900, but I would bet they’re damned near unprecedented.

But what the hell: let’s suppose that the pro-Blyleven crowd actually has a point — that Bert was late to the prom because he didn’t pitch in New York (or Boston, or Atlanta — or even Oakland). The only way to show that that might be true is to compare him to Hall of Famers who did, but whose numbers are comparable or (arguably) worse. Like? Like Catfish Hunter: who won fewer games (224 vs. 287), had fewer strikeouts (2012 vs 3701), fewer shutouts (42 vs. 60),  and fewer complete games (181 vs. 242). Of course, Hunter won a Cy Young, and Blyleven didn’t. But then again, a Cy Young is given out by baseball writers — the same cadre that kept the big righty out of the Hall all of these years.

The Year of the Pitcher may well turn into the year of the underdog, with the lowly, no-acount, we-can’t-hit-worth-a-damn San Francisco Giants slaying the pound-em-out hit-heavy Texas Rangers. Really. It could happen. But don’t tell San Francisco Giants fans. McCovey Chronicles is emblamatic of how the team’s followers feel: they can’t quite believe their good fortune, remain puzzled about how a team with three top pitchers (and not a whole lot else) can be playing for all of baseball’s marbles and reminisce about all those San Francisco might-have-beens. The 2000 version of the Giants (who did not get beyond the NLDS), and the 2002 contenders for the title, were far better teams than the 2010 McCoveys (these fans contend) because the current Giants lack the big bat that would make a World Series win a lock. “That 2000 team…man. They were stacked,” McCovey Chronicles notes. True. But they didn’t win the Series.

Back in 2000, J.T. Snow, Jeff Kent, Rich Aurelia, Bill Mueller and (oh yes) Barry Bonds were a near-cinch to lead San Francisco to the promised land. But it didn’t happen (not even close). And the reason it didn’t happen wasn’t because the Giants didn’t have hitting, it’s because the front three of Livan Hernandez, Russ Ortiz and Shawn Estes couldn’t compete with the New York Valentines, who were led into the NLDS by Mike Hampton, Al Leiter, Bobby Jones, Glendon Rusch and a bullpen spearheaded by Armando Benitez — the class of baseball’s closers. The Apples outfield looked mediocre (Derek Bell, Jay Payton and Benny Agbayani — for God’s sake), their infield was filled with holes and, much like the 2010 version of the McCoveys, everyone wondered where the Mets were going to get their runs. They didn’t need to. Even the Mets’ mid-rotation pitchers were better than the Giants’ hitters. In game four of the NLDS (just as an example), Bobby Jones bested the Giants’ line-up, holding the McCoveys to (count ‘em) one hit. Barry Bonds was .176 for the series. The Giants went home and the Mets went on to eat the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS.

The temptation here is to compare the 2010 Giants with the 2000 Mets, though comparisons of one team with another in different years is always chancy. Yet, for fans of the McCoveys to reminisce about that “stacked” 2000 team misses the point — their pitching was very average. If that. The 2010 version of the San Francisco Giants is totally different: they are pitching dependent, counting on runs from a handful of slap-and-tickle vets like Andres Torres, Edgar Rentaria and Juan Uribe (the absolutely key Juan Uribe), a couple of bench veterans (Pablo Sandoval and Aaron Rowand) and a rookie whiz (Buster Posey). But forget that. Here’s the true comparison. In 2000, the Valentines rode into the World Series against the Yankees on the strength of their arms: and hit a buzz saw. Why? Because the Empire’s arms (Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Orlando Hernandez) were damn near unbeatable. So ignore the hitters, and consider this: the 2010 Giants are “stacked” with pitching — and boast the best front three (Lincecum, Cain and Sanchez) in the post-season since the 2000 Yankees made the Mets look silly. Don’t kid yourself. It’s still the year of the pitcher.