It’s probably just a coincidence, but on the day that Tom Boswell pummeled the Lerners and Mike Rizzo for refusing to spend money (or take chances), the team pulled off a major trade with the Oakland A’s. Maybe Mikey was feeling the heat. Maybe not. Either way, the deal brings uber-talented lefty Gio Gonzalez to the Nationals to head up what is now one of baseball’s best rotations, but ships out four talented prospects, including Brad Peacock, whose as close to a “can’t miss” as the Nationals have. So: was it worth it?

Amanda Comack over at the Washington Times says that Gonzalez “fits precisely what Washington wants,” and gives the team a top-of-the-rotation innings eater. Comack points out that Gonzalez’s numbers translate well into the National League, though he walks a lot of hitters (91, to lead the AL last year). John Heyman over at Baseball Insider gives the Nats an attaboy, saying the team improved its rotation to the point where it may be a contender. Keith Law, meanwhile, says he’s not that impressed with Gonzalez (you have to wonder why, but it’s Keith Law), while Buster “Blind Dog” Olney (who actually sometimes finds a bone) says that Gonzalez reminds him of Twinkies starter Brad Radke — which is to say that Buster doesn’t know what to think.

We prefer to issue our judgments over a glass of scotch, which is where (last night) we received this opinion from one of the team’s season ticket holders. “The price is high,” this fan said, “maybe too high.” The fan then pointed out that “Rizzo would not have done this had he landed [Mark] Buehrle.” True. Which is not only to point out that scotch is a powerful truth serum (not always a good thing, mind you), but to suggest that if Rizzo & Company had bid higher for the former Pale Hose veteran, the team would not only have a front-of-the-rotation arm that is (arguably) better than Gonzalez, but they would have been able to hang on to both Peacock and Milone — whose arms will now be tested in the cavernous confines of the Oakland Coliseum.

Sometimes the most obvious conclusions are the ones you stick with — that Boswell’s criticism remains on target precisely because when Rizzo couldn’t pony up the bucks for Buehrle he had no choice but to part with four prospects for a front line pitcher. Gonzalez is a great addition and we applaud it, but spending the money on Buehrle and hanging on to Peacock, Milone, Norris and Cole would have been the wiser move. Yeah. True. But we’ll take it and hope that the Lerners are so irritated by what Boswell wrote that they’ll be determined to prove him wrong.

When the Nationals can’t pitch, they can’t hit — and when they can’t hit, they can’t pitch. But when they do both, they still need the ball to bounce the right way, and that hasn’t been happening lately. With their game knotted at four on Sunday, the Anacostia Nine simply needed to get out of the 9th and win it in the bottom of the inning, but a squibber off the bat of Ryan Ludwick and past a diving Ian Desmond scored Jorge Cantu to give the San Diego Padres a 5-4 win.

Was there any good news? If you think that a win is the best and only news there can be, then “no,” there wasn’t. But at least the Nationals began to hit, with Jayson Werth going 3-4 and Michael Morse continuing with his hot hitting. But Drew Storen, who has been struggling of late, was saddled with the loss — although reliever Tyler Clippard seemed to emerge from his late inning doldrums to register two innings of one hit ball. The jury is still out on Yunesky Maya, meanwhile, as the Cuban defector (who was called up from Syracuse) started strong, but then faded in the 5th.

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: The Nationals are now 5-11 in one run games, and still have to find a way to win the close ones. And there’s grumbling amongst Nationals fans, who wonder whether the team’s skipper is so enamored of speed and the hit and run that he runs the Nationals out of some games. The groans along the first base line were audible on Saturday, as fans grumbled when Michael Morse was caught stealing with Jerry Hairston at the plate and Matt Stairs on the deck. “He just ran us out of the game,” a Nats’ ticket holder groused . . .

There was a lot of talk amongst season ticket holders about Jayson Werth’s comments earlier this week. “He said his comments weren’t aimed at Riggleman, but I don’t buy it,” a regular in Row BB commented. “Ah, he’s just frustrated,” a fan responded. “He’s always been that way.” Another fan, a visitor from New York, chimed in: “Well, Bobby’s available.” This brought puzzled looks and a response: “Valentine? Forget about it. If you think Werth is angry now, just wait until Valentine gets here. Rizz [Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo] will never give up on Riggleman.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Josh Willingham says he loves it in Oakland, where he’s become the centerpiece of the White Elephant’s all-pitch, no-hit franchise. But Willingham hasn’t exactly been hitting the cover off the ball, which is why the Athletics got him to begin with — he’s hitting .238 and been reaching for pitches out of the zone. Playing in Oakland’s “Coliseum” might have something to do with it: in most ballparks a ball will get lost in the lights; in Oakland, a ball gets lost in the darkness. And the fences are far, far away: out where the California National Guard patrols.

But Oakland is playing good baseball and getting good pitching, which has taken the pressure off the struggling Willingham. The good news is that when Oakland doesn’t get the stellar pitching they’re used to, Willingham has a habit of putting a ball back where no one can get it. As he did this afternoon against the Orioles, parking a heater from uber rookie Zach Britton in the left field seats.

The Connie Macks went on to win, 6-4 and sweep the suddenly struggling Orioles. The A’s are worth watching; they lead the A.L. in ERA and a lurking close enough to the top of the A.L. West to make the Gunslingers and Belinskys sweat. The A’s never seem to run out of pitching: today they started Guillermo Moscoso. Oh come on, you remember Guillermo Moscoso — right? No? Well, join the club.

Baseball’s commenters continue to insist it’s “early” — but if you’re a Boston Red Sox fan, the clock is ticking. With the Nationals rained out in St. Louis, it seemed as good a time as any to check out Boston’s best, switching the channel from the MASN St. Louis broadcast to CSN California, where the struggling Bosox were facing off against Oakland’s Brett Anderson, one of the best young pitchers in the game. The Red Sox have always had difficulties against Anderson and, as it turns out, last night was no different, as Anderson and the A’s shut down the Red Sox 5-0.

The difference in the game was Anderson — who threw eight complete innings of four hit ball, burying his curve and baffling Bosox hitters. Boston’s best flailed away, notching eight strike outs while Anderson walked one. The good news for Boston (if there is such a thing) is that its pitching was strong through seven, with John Lackey returning to form: he looked just fine in six complete, holding the White Elephants to a single run on four hits. But this might not have been the best night to give Hideki Okajima his first outing of the season; the just-returned Okajima threw batting practice to the A’s light hitting roster, and they lit him up (.2 innings, two hits, three runs — that’s a 40.50 ERA).

“It’s awful early,” Sox manager Terry Francona said after the game. “It’s a small sample, but their guy just pitched a great game tonight. They’re a hot staff right now.” Well, it’s not that early — and while the Sox are hardly out of it in the A.L. East (and yeah, there’s still a long way to go), their best hitters are struggling (the team is 10th of 14 in the A.L.), and their pitching is nowhere to be seen (they’re dead last in the A.L. in team ERA). You can see their struggles in their eyes: Carl Crawford looks like he’s been hit with a shovel, and Kevin Youkilis shakes his head after nearly every poor inning.

So here’s the question: is it that Brett Anderson was that good — or that Boston just can’t get on track? For Francona, the glass is still half full: don’t worry, Boston is recovering from its early season woes (he says), they just ran into a tough young pitcher. But for Boston fans, that reassuring message is getting harder and harder to believe. Anderson is only the beginning. The A’s have the best young staff in the game (Brett Anderson, Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez, reclamation project Brandon McCarthy — oh, and Dallas Braden and his temporary replacement, Tyson Ross) and Boston is 0-7 on the road. It might not seem likely, but it’s possible that Boston will emerge from the caverns of the Oakland Coliseum with a record of 5-13. In which case, it’ll be damned hard for the Back Bay faithful to do anything but panic.

Josh Willingham has been traded to the Oakland Athletics for former Oklahoma State bopper Corey Brown and pitcher Henry Rodriguez, who features a 98 mph fastball and a devastating curve. It’s tough to see Willingham go and Nationals’ fans are bound to be disappointed in the return: neither Brown nor Rodriguez are considered among the top prospects in the A’s system, and both are unpolished. But the Nats front office was apparently impressed with Brown’s power (he was dominant this fall, in Arizona) and H-Rod’s eye-popping speed and both will get a good look in Spring Training. It’s not out of the question that, if Rodriguez impresses Riggleman & Co., he could be the Nats’ closer in 2011. He has the stuff to do it and was used out of the bullpen by the A’s in 2010. Corey Brown, on the other hand, might well be an experiment: he hit for power in the A’s farm system (with 15 home runs at AA and AAA), but he struck out 129 times in 530-some at bats. Even so, Brown is young enough and good enough (and he’s fast) to start getting more than a look-see in a new Nats outfield.

In Willingham, the A’s get a steady presence both in left field and at the plate where (prior to his August 15 injury) he hit .268 with 16 home runs. The trade for Willingham was set up by A’s General Manager Billy Beane by the signing of former Rangers pitcher Brandon McCarthy and the re-signing of yet-to-reach-his-potential Rich Harden. Then too, in light of a slow off season for the Belinskis, the continued cratering of the Mariners and the failure of Texas to land Cliff Lee, the A’s front office is calculating that the A’s can outdistance the Rangers for A.L. West honors. They might be right. With the addition of Willingham, the White Elephants have finished building an outfield that (in addition to Willingham) will now feature Coco Crisp and David DeJesus, and a revamped middle-of-the-line-up that includes newly signed Hideki Matsui. The A’s are also in the race for Adrian Beltre, whose prospective signing would give the A’s a middle of the order that would be the class of the other coast.

And the Nats? Considering Willingham’s mid-August injury and his reputation as a popular but not-quite-great ballplayer, Rizzo got what he could — and it wasn’t bad. Brown has power potential and is close to getting more than just a cup of coffee in the bigs, while Rodriguez is a comer — and is coming fast. We all loved “The Hammer,” but no one would mistake Willingham for Henry Aaron. Nor was Willingham ever picked as the player who could become a constant presence, or lead the team to the promised land. He was good. He was beloved. He was temporary. The Nats need to get younger, faster and better, which is what they just did.

How odd is it that, just over forty games into the season, the Washington Nationals and San Francisco Giants — teams so different in outlook, history and raw talent — would have almost identical records? And yet there it is: after suffering through a gut-wrenching five game losing streak, the Giants (predicted in the pre-season as one of the elite teams of the NL West), are one game over .500, as are the Nats (at 23-22). If the Giants are so much better than the Nats (as baseball analysts would have once claimed), then why are they playing so poorly?

At least a part of the answer became obvious on Sunday, as the McCoveys struggled through yet another punchless contest — registering a terminally fatal 0-18 with runners in scoring position and suffering their second consecutive shutout. The loss was particularly hard to swallow, as it came against their White Elephant rivals across the Bay, who not only swept the interleague series, but made the Giants look downright silly. Here’s the key, at least according to San Francisco skipper Bruce Bochy: the Giants can hit, but only sometimes and even when they do, it’s not when runners are in a position to score.

Giants fans are becoming impatient: with one of the most formidable starting rotations in all of baseball, the Giants should be winning decisively. They’re not. Bochy has responded to the team’s hitting drought by shaking up the McCovey’s batting order: dropping outfielder Aaron Rowand into the sixth spot and moving speedster Andres Torres to the head of the line-up. But even Bochy has doubts this will work — San Francisco’s problem is that it lacks hitters who can hit for power and average. Pablo Sandoval is San Francisco’s premier (and popular) young power hitter, but his batting average stands at .282 — hardly something to brag about. Aaron Rowand, signed as a free agent to anchor the outfield and drive in runs, is hitting just .242 while import Freddy Sanchez is struggling to remain above the Mendoza line.

A comparison between a line-up struggling to generate runs and one that knows how to put them on the board is sobering. The Giants have put 33 dingers into the seats, the Nats 39; the Giants are hitting an anemic .257, the Nats are chugging along at .265 — the Giants have driven in 160 runs, the Nats 191. Which is to say: a San Francisco front office that boasts a starting rotation of Lincecum, Cain, Zito and Sanchez (truly, the Nats have no one to compare), is now having to scramble to find someone comparable to Willingham, Dunn, Zimmerman and Guzman — anyone of whom would add more power and average to the Giants line-up than anyone they currently have. Which is why, in the weeks ahead, the Giants will begin to search for the hitting they will so desperately need to catch the Friars and Trolleys for the NL West flag. They must know — the price will be high.

In the “I can’t believe this is happening” 2010 season of your Washington Nationals, the late April three game series against the Cubs might stand out as one of the team’s best. The Nationals came into Chicago hovering at .500, and left two games over. The Nationals took two of three from the Cubs in a tightly played defense-and-pitching series of contests that (in retrospect) weren’t all that close. Oddly, the Nats not only won the series, they were the better team on the field. With a 12-10 record, the Nats are off to their best start since moving from Montreal to D.C. But it’s not just the wins that are surprising (or not, as the case may be), it’s the way the Nats are winning — getting solid starting pitching, playing tough defense and relying on a dependable “lights out” reliever.

The Nats 3-2 win on Wednesday at Wrigley was a model of how the Mike Rizzo makeover has taken hold: Luis Atilano pitched six solid, if unspectacular, innings, Adam Dunn ended the game with a tough near-the-boxes snag of a fly ball that kept the Cubbies off the bases in the ninth, and Matt Capps recorded his league-leading 10th save in a three-up-and-three-down final frame. Even the sometimes-shakey Brian Bruney looked good, pitching out of a two-men-on 7th inning. Bruney looked like he’s finally getting his fastball down in the zone, and gaining confidence. My sense is that Nats’ skipper Jim Riggleman is desperately trying to keep his composure, while privately holding torch light parades on the team’s impressive start. “Our guys are focused and trying to play today’s game, not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or down the road,” Riggleman said after the series. “They are just trying to win the game. Hopefully, it will add up and we win another one.”

Those Are The Headlines, Now For The Details: “Baseball Tonight” commentators are starting to take notice of the Nats — focusing, most recently, on the 10-for-10 Capps. The “who would have thought it” comments are a reflection, mayhaps, of BT’s down-in-the-mouth view of Nats’ baseball. After L.A. dropped two of three in Washington last week, BT ran a segment on “what’s wrong in L.A.” — implying that it wasn’t a matter of what Washington was doing right, but what the Dodgers were doing wrong. The lone exception is Tim Kurkjian who, when not talking about Stephen Strasburg, is celebrating his Spring Training prediction that the team is worth watching . . . The Cubs looked just average in their series loss against the Anacostia Nine. The Cubbies pitched well, but their big bombers (and the entire team, for that matter) were held homerless. That’s almost unheard of in Chicago, and shows just how effective Nats’ starters have been . . . We’ll add this: Tyler Colvin looks like the real deal. It’s going to be hard to keep the Stan- Hack-in-waiting out of the line-up, or keep Alfonso Soriano in . . .

After putting it off for several months, I am reading The Bill James Gold Mine, the most recent trademark effort from the statistical guru and now Senior Baseball Operations Advisor for the Red Sox. As if I don’t get enough baseball (a Nats game per day, plus the MLB Extra Innings package — this week it was the fascinating Diamondbacks-Rockies match-up), I now finish the evening with a chapter of James — like slurping ice cream after a visit to Chucky Cheeze. His take on the 1974 World Series is worth reading twice, particularly if (like me), you don’t exactly have a love affair with Dodger play-by-play legend Vin Scully. Then there’s this, in the chapter on the Oakland Athletics, one of baseball’s most fascinating teams:

“Who led the Oakland A’s in Win Shares in 2009? Andrew Bailey with his 26 saves and 1.84 ERA? Nope, he had 17 Win Shares. Jack Cust and his 25 home runs? No, only 14 Win Shares. Matt Holliday before he left? Only 12 Win Shares. It was third baseman Adam Kennedy with 18 Win Shares . . .” That is to say, if you peel away all the controversy (and complexity) surrounding the concept of “win shares,” James is making the case that Kennedy was more valuable to the A’s in 2009 than franchise marquee players Bailey, Cust and Holliday. The notion is almost counter-intuitive. That said, James has a point about Kennedy, and players like him. My own non-statistical sense is that Kennedy’s value to the A’s last year and to the Nats this year is more simply put: while Kennedy is hardly flashy and does not hit the long ball, his steady experience pours concrete into the middle of the Nats infield and batting order. I just feel better with him on the field. At the end of the year (and barring injury), we’ll find that the Nats are more likely winners when Kennedy’s in the line-up than when he’s not . . .

Jason Marquis couldn’t find the strike zone in his first regular season outing, and when he did the Phillies took full advantage. The Phillies chased the free agent righthander after just four innings and went on to an easy 8-4 victory over the Nats. The Nationals have now begun their season 0-2, and probably can’t wait to for the Phillies to leave town. “The whole Phillies lineup is dangerous, but they all can be pitched to,” Marquis said after the game. “They have holes in their swing, you just have to make pitches against this lineup. There is no letup. I wasn’t able to make as many pitches as I wanted to.” What Marquis meant was: I wasn’t able to make as many good pitches as I wanted to. There’s no desperation just yet (heck, it’s only the second game of the season), but to hold their home fans, the Nats cannot afford another 0-7 start — and are growing anxious to notch their first win.(Well, I suppose if it gets really bad, Stan could bus in some people from Phillie or New York.)

If there’s good news, it’s that shortstop newbie Ian Desmond is hitting the ball — if inconsistently. The rookie stroked a beautiful line-drive home run into straight away center field and a double down the left field line. But the good news is more than balanced by the bad: Desmond notched three strike outs (one looking). The kid can hit fastballs (hell, I can hit fastballs), but he needs a tune-up on anything moving over the plate. The other piece of good news is that Josh Willingham seems in mid-season form: he was 3-5 last night with a walk and he looks tough at the plate. Willingham is hitting .571 to start the season. For Nats fans, the post-game was nearly as interesting as watching Cole Hamels (who wasn’t sharp) wrack up his first win. Callers to the “Nats Talk Live” post game show on WFED were in their football mode, telling Phil Wood that it was time to “blow up the team” and “send a message” to guys like Marquis and reliever Matt Capps. “I don’t buy this ‘the season is 162 games and there’s a long way to go,’” an angry caller told Wood. “We need to do something now.” Yeah, like what? It’s not like the Nats can trade a couple of draft picks for a celebrated slinger, then hold a reassuring press conference to sooth their fans. This isn’t that game.

It’ll be okay. The Nats head to New York to face the already-struggling Mets this weekend and there’s no reason to panic. The team that’s on the field at Nats Park (that is, the home team, not the Phillies) is galactically better than last year’s edition: Adam Kennedy and Pudge Rodriguez will make a significant difference, the Nats are finally playing their young players, and the bullpen is not nearly as shaky as it was a year ago (Matt Capps threw well last night, and would have been out of the ninth if it weren’t for an Ian Desmond error). It’s only a matter of time before Lannan and Marquis hit their stride and the quartet of Zimmerman, Dunn, Willingham and Rodriguez put some numbers on the board. Which is to say: the season is 162 games and there’s a long way to go.

In The Land of the White Elephants: The modern version of the double header is to leave Nats Park right after the game (at about 10:45) and arrive at home in time to watch MLB Network’s west coast feed. Without extra innings or fireworks, it’s possible — and rewarding. Then too, you can flip between the west coast game and the thirty minute version of Baseball Tonight and, if the semi-goofy Bobby Valentine isn’t the featured BBT analyst, the games and comments are as entertaining as anything on television (maybe that’s not saying much). Even so, last night’s Navigators vs. White Elephants tilt was a barnburner, a classic match-up between two teams that don’t like each other even a little bit. This is the west coast version of the Boston-New York rivalry and, when the A’s are good (which they’re not, not really) it’s something to see.

While BBT’s on-set announcers go on (and on) about how crucial the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is to the future of humanity, the A’s versus Mariners games have been as entertaining. The two have played two walk-off last-at-bat games in as many nights, with last night’s 5-4 bottom-of-the-ninth victory a model of west coast junior circuit baseball. The hero was Oakland catcher Kurt Suzuki, who came up to face Seattle fireballer Mark Lowe with newly acquired Kevin Kouzmanoff (who, honest, played like Brooks Robinson) on first. Suzuki promptly lofted a Lowe fast ball into the left field darkness which, for all the world, looked like it would clear the fence. As Suzuki did his Carlton Fisk routine down the first base line and Seattle outfielder Milton Bradley maneuvered vainly to snag a circus catch, Kouzmanoff (head down) circled the bases for the winning run. Suzuki’s shot hit just above Bradley’s glove and the celebration was on. I swear: even with the ninth inning meltdown of the emotionally impaired Jonathan Papelbon in Boston (it came against the Yankees, after all), the A’s dunking of the Navs in Oakland was the most entertaining game of the night.