. . . because, while the Nationals keep winning in Philly, they still have seven games to play and, no matter what they do, will finish no better than third. We’re not just being killjoys: while it’s wonderful to see our Anacostia Nine play so well (especially at “Nats Park North”), there are some among us who (in the middle of the 7th inning last night — and then again in the 8th) stood up and screamed — “that’s just great, but where were you in June?”

The answer oughta be obvious: trying to find a pitching staff. That the Nats have now won consistently, when it counts the least, is evidence that (finally), that seems to have been done. John Lannan didn’t pitch brilliantly last night, but he fought hard and well (he’s not the same pitcher we saw last year), and a whole handful of other arms have now emerged: Milone and Peacock, and Wang and Detwiler — not to mention Jordan Zimmermann and Stephen Strasburg (and, just maybe, Livan Hernandez). And those are just the starters.

Then too, the bats have nearly ended their slumber: the Nationals pounded out ten hits last night, which included home runs from Danny Espinosa (his 21st, setting a Nationals rookie record), and the vastly underrated Wilson Ramos (who hit his 14th, which is none too shabby). More importantly, the Nats shook off their disturbing habit of serving tea to men on base — eight were left on base last night, but that number is going down, and they’ve damned near returned to the league mean.

As important (we think) is that the Nationals are now 9-8 against their in-division rivals — with the bonus that Nats fans have started to stream north. That an indication (perhaps), that Nats fans are anticipating what might (might) happen next year. “It’s a fun time,” Danny Espinosa said of his visit to the not-so-friendly confines of The Bank. “It’s a fun game to play against them. I want to play them hard because I know we can beat them. We are showing that. For myself, personally, I enjoy playing against the team.”

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: We’ve decided to change the description of the New York Mets — they’re no longer “the chokes.” That description more aptly fits the Atlanta Braves, who barely showed up to play the Marlins last night in Miami, and lost to the stinking Fish. It wasn’t even close. Now they know how it feels. The Braves now lead the Cardinals (who woulda thought — and certainly not us), by a single game and some spit. The Cardinals surprised everyone (including their own fans) and rallied to beat the Mets in St. Louis, 6-5 . . .

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The Washington Nationals broke out the lumber at Nationals’ Park on Sunday, spraying twelve hits and hitting back-to-back-to-back home runs to down the visiting Houston Astros, 8-2. The hit parade was led by Ian Desmond, who was 3-5 with two RBIs. Ryan Zimmerman, Chris Marrero and Danny Espinosa claimed two hits each, with Rick Ankiel, Jayson Werth and Laynce Nix each collecting one. The win meant that the Nationals took the series, two games to one.

“I think the nicest thing about all that is we finally had the lead,” Desmond said following the victory. “All series and the last two series, we have been behind and defensive. So today, we all wanted to make sure that we stayed aggressive. We weren’t so passive, giving a pitcher a strike, whatever it may have been. We wanted to make sure we were in the driver’s seat all day. That worked out for us.”

The Nats’ win dampened the headlines that were sure to be dominated by Stephen Strasburg, who pitched three innings — but was taken out by Davey Johnson after throwing 57 pitches. Johnson noted that Strasburg had thrown a lot of pitches in the first inning, and he didn’t want to extend him further: ” I explained to him, ‘I don’t want to [take you out during an inning]. As far, as I’m concerned, it’s like your second time out in Spring Training. That’s enough for me. You are not going to go five.’”

The Nats home run trifecta took place in the third inning, when Ian Desmond hit his eighth homer, Rick Ankiel followed with his ninth and Ryan Zimmerman followed with his 12th. The back-to-back-to-back home runs were the first time the Nationals had accomplished that unique feat since 2009. Once again the Nationals bullpen was superb: Tom Gorzelanny, Sean Burnett and Henry Rodriguez held the Astros scoreless, with Doug Slaten giving up an unearned run in the ninth.

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: The by-now traditional end-of-year conversation dominated the talk of the section, nearly from the beginning of the game — determining who would (and who would not), be with the Nationals next year. The yakking started with Rick Ankiel. “Definitely gone,” one opinionated fan said. “What? Seven, eight home runs? We can do better.”

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Fans of the Cardinals should have known something was wrong the minute they showed up in Milwaukee last Friday: before taking the field, the Cardinals learned that the Brewers would be wearing the same uniforms they had in 1982 — when they faced off against the Cardinals in the first game of the World Series. In that 1982 first game match-up, “Harvey’s Wallbangers” stunned the Cardinals 10-0. And so (as justice would have it), the 2011 Brewers (in their “throwbacks”) reprised the heroics of the Milwaukee Younts, scorching Cardinal pitching for eight unanswered runs.

It was downhill from there: the Brewers swept the Cardinals in three games and vaulted past them into first place in the N.L. Central. In truth, the series wasn’t even that close. The Brewers out-hit, out-fielded, outran and out and out outplayed the Cardinals, victimizing them with roundhouse howitzers from Prince Fielder (two in three games), Rickie Weeks, Ryan Brown and Corey Hart. That is to say — the Cardinals were shelled.

The series was (as Viva El Birdos notes), “Deja Vu all over again” — the second time in the 2011 campaign that the Cardinals showed up in a rival city in first place, and left the city in second. That had happened before, when St. Louis made an ill-advised trip to Cincinnati. Deja Vu? Maybe: but as “El Birdos” notes, the Cardinals “limped” into Milwaukee without the services of uber-slugger Matt Holliday, third baseman David Freese, second base wunderkind Allen Craig, or fifth starter Kyle McClellan. Still, it’s hard to feel sorry for the Gibsons: their bullpen stinks, Lance Berkman has no business hitting .317 and Kyle Lohse hasn’t had an ERA lower the 3.50 in his life (and probably never will again).

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There might have been parades in Milwaukee when the Brewers’ front office traded for Royals’ ace Zack Greinke in the off-season. The righty was going to be the team’s top pitcher in the 2011 season, overawing the trade for Toronto arm Shaun Marcum and taking pressure off a sometimes hard pressed and puzzlingly slump-vulnerable line-up. But the price was heavy: the Brewers gave up good-glove, faster-than-a-speeding-bullet shortstop Alcides Escobar, outfielder Lorenzo Cain, and two pitching prospects for Greinke and shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt.

And then the bottom fell out.

In mid-March, the Brewers ace-to-be suffered an injury while playing basketball — cracking a rib on his left side and bruising another. Greinke’s steep overhand delivery was painfully impaired, and it was clear that the new Brewer wasn’t going to make the Opening Day line-up. In early April, Greinke was throwing off a mound, but was still several weeks away from a start. And when Greinke finally appeared on May 4, at the back end of a make-up doubleheader, he looked less than average, giving up five runs and four hits in five innings to the Bravos. No one panicked, of course, though it was clear that Greinke wasn’t all the way back.

Yesterday, Greinke started his second game of the season, and it looked like he was his old self. He threw six innings of five hit ball in notching his first win for his new team. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But what’s interesting about the Greinke opera is that it’s served to mask the real story for the Brewers this season, and the trade that everyone has overlooked. The real ace of the Brewers’ staff isn’t Greinke, or even uber thrower Yovani Gallardo, it’s Shaun Marcum, the guy that Milwaukee got in that other trade. At least someone noticed: back in December, Brew Crew Ball predicted that the impact of the trade “is going to be tremendous.” They got it right.

The Brewers’ rotation makes other N.L. Central teams take a quick breath (Zack Greinke, Yovani Gallardo, Chris Narveson and Marcum), but the real powerhouse has been Marcum — the pitcher that the Blue Jays (they had a thing for Brewers prospect Brett Lawrie — perhaps justifiably) allowed to get away. Still, trading a top-of-the-rotation pitcher for a prospect isn’t exactly good team planning, unless you aren’t willing to pony-up the bucks it takes to keep him. Marcum is pitching lights-out in Milwaukee: he’s 3-1 with a 2.06 ERA. Marcum has thrown two shutouts and gone less than six complete only once. He had a rough outing in his debut, but pitched beautifully last Thursday, when he shut down the bat heavy Bravos, wracking up seven innings and eight strikeouts (he got a no-decision).

The rap on Marcum — who features a low-90s fastball, to go along with a solid change and hook — is that he’s not durable. He battled shoulder tightness during Spring Training and had a tweaky elbow with Toronto, but he’s a better than quality starter when he’s healthy. And he’s carried the Brewers, who have unaccountably struggled in the early going (they’re now a puzzling 15-20) and have battled injuries: Nyjer Morgan has a broken finger, Jonathan LuCroy has been on and off the DL and reliever Zach Braddock is fighting “a sleep disorder.” Even more worrisome, right fielder Corey Hart (rehabbing a strained oblique) can’t seem to get unwound: the team spark plug is hitting a fumbling .178.

Even so, Shaun Marcum’s early dominance (now coupled with the return of Greinke) might well propel the Brewers into the top spot in the N.L. Central, if only because the opposition (but particularly the Astros and Cubs), seem so average. None of them can match-up against the likes of Greinke, let alone Marcum, and none of them (with the possible exception of the Reds) have the explosive power of a line-up that features an untracked Hart, Ryan Braun, Casey McGehee, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, and the suddenly sharp Carlos Gomez. But when, not if, the Brewers start to turn it on, it’ll likely be Marcum that everyone notices.

Down 4-2 to the hard-hitting Phillies in the eighth inning, Adam Dunn hit his first home run of the season and the next batter, Ivan Rodriguez was walked. Ryan Zimmerman then came to the plate as a pinch hitter and put a floater  from Phillies’ reliever Danys Baez into the right field seats. Zimmerman’s clutch pinch hit homer stunned Baez and led the Nationals to a thrilling and much-needed come-from-behind victory in Philadelphia. The win brought the Nats to 3-3 on their road trip to New York and Philadelphia and set up a key series against the Brewers at Nats Park beginning on Friday. Baez took the loss, but was philosophical after the game in explaining how he pitched the Nats’ silver slugger: “I was trying to stay away on him,” he said. “I’ve faced him a lot of times. I always stay in, in, in. He’s coming off the bench and hasn’t played for a couple days, so I was trying to stay on him. He hit the ball and it went out of the ballpark. I didn’t hear good contact. I was surprised [the ball went out], myself.”

The win against the Phillies broke an eight game losing streak for the Nats in Philadelphia.”They are tough no matter where you play them,” Nats manager Jim Riggleman commented after the victory. “They are very comfortable here. They are just hard to beat all the way through the lineup. It was a great challenge for our ballclub, and we met the challenge pretty good.” Dunn’s homer seemed to signal something new for the Nats: a hope that the club can shake off its early season slump and begin hitting the ball. Dunn talked about his at-bat against Baez: “I basically ambushed him,” he said. “I haven’t been swinging at the first pitch. The other day, he walked me on four straight pitches leading off the eighth. I knew he was going to try to get ahead. I just closed my eyes and swung.”

El Siguiente: The Brewers are what they’ve always been — a power hitting team that struggles on the mound. The Brewers tried to change that over the winter, shipping power hitting but disappointing shortstop J.J. Hardy to the Minnesota Twins for outfielder Carlos Gomez. The trade of the popular Hardy was a head-scratcher for a lot of Beer Town fans, but the Milwaukee front office was frustrated by Hardy’s inconsistency (he was sent down to Triple-A while suffering through a killer slump in August), and weren’t thrilled to pay him to hit in the low .200s. Most important of all, the Brewers’ brain trust (such as it is) wanted to make room for “El Siguiente” — “The Next One.” Rookie Alcides Escobar has an all-world glove, can steal bases and has a potent Punch-and-Judy bat: he stole 42 bases in Nashville and won the Venezuelan winter league batting title.

The problem is still pitching. While the Brewers signed headline ace Yovani Gallardo to a five year $30 million extension just last week, the second act to the hard-throwing righty is more than a little troublesome. The Brewers’ rotation features a group of knee-knockers, including lefty slinger Manny Parra (a 6.36 ERA last year), former Cardinal also-ran Jeff Suppan (with a knee-buckling four year $42 million contract), aging bad-boy and former Trolley Randy Wolf (who’s always right around .500), and the imposing (6-4, 215) Doug Davis — who sometimes pitches like he’s five-foot-three. That might not be so bad, but bound-for-the-hall closer Trevor Hoffman is obviously on his last legs (he sports a head-spinning 12.60 ERA so far this year) and well-traveled set-up man LeTroy Hawkins hasn’t been able to find the strike zone for the last three years.

Yikes.

The good news, at least for the Brewers, is that opposing pitchers have to face Prince Fielder four times a game. Fielder, one of baseball’s good guys, can hit the ball a ton — and is worth the price of admission. Yeah, well — even so, I’d rather pierce my eyeballs with needles than to watch this guy swing his bat against the Nats. To help Fielder, the Brewers added Jim Edmonds over the winter. Edmonds is a heckler’s paradise: he left his wife to marry a Hooters’ waitress when he was a Red Bird and Cubs fans were all over him (“Hey Jim, where’s my chicken wings?”) — until, that is, he actually became a Cub. Then they thought he was the second coming. With Edmonds, super bopper Ryan Braun and Fielder in the middle of the line-up, this team can hit. Oh yeah, and the Brewers still have all-world nifty-glove-super-sub Craig Counsell sitting on the bench, and pennants just seem to follow him around. The Brewers are doing okay — they’re 4-5 coming into Washington and just in back of the Cardinals, Bakers and Cubs, but ahead of Houston and the Ahoys. Too bad for Brew Crew fans: that’s where they’re likely to stay.

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.

Stephen Strasburg, Washington’s first overall pick in the 2009 first year player draft, will answer questions from fans and the media in D.C. on Friday. But it’s likely that he won’t be able to answer the most important question  he will face: just how good are you anyway? Strasburg is the most highly touted amateur pitcher in baseball history — outdueling (and out-earning) Mark Prior, Ben McDonald and David Clyde for the honor. The San Diego State University righthander has a zippy fastball and a vicious hook, but other pitchers in other eras have had the same, and failed. That said, the Nats have done the homework that due diligence required, sending scouts to watch Strasburg in every game he has pitched over the last year. Good scouting can’t guarantee anything, but in this case it might prove the difference between a better-than-average hurler and just another busted flush.

The Nats have sold 6000 $1 tickets to fans who want to see Strasburg, who will arrive at Nationals Park this afternoon at 2 pm. And at 11:30, fans have been invited to chat with the Nats’ new “great right hope” on line at MLB.com. Should be quite a scene. Strasburg, who is only 20, went 13-1 with a 1.32 ERA in 15 starts this at San Diego State University this season. He struck out 195 batters and issued just 19 walks in 109 innings. The ballclub would undoubtedly love to showcase Strasburg sometime in September (and thus fill the seats at Nats Park, at least for one game), but that now seems unlikely. “The Strasburg signing greatly impacts the Minor League system and the Major League ballclub, but I have to reinforce this: He can’t be viewed as the savior of the organization, because as we’ve seen with Jordan Zimmermann, the shelf life is sometimes pretty quick,” new Nats G.M. Mike Rizzo said yesterday. “But we are hoping he is the player we think he is. I know he is the person we think he is. He is a tremendous makeup guy. This guy is what you are looking for in your No. 1 ace, Major League starter.”

Down On Half Street: The Nats open a four game series against the Milwaukee Brewers at Nationals Park on Friday, before heading out to face the North Side Drama Queens in Chicago, the Redbirds in St. Louis and the Friars in San Diego. The Prince Fielder led beermakers, who had high hopes for a playoff spot, are reeling after being swept by the Ahoys in Pittsburgh. The Brew Crew is now four games under .500 and ten games behind St. Louis in the NL Central. The standard view is that the Brewers have the wood to win (Fielder leads the team and has 32 home runs and a .416 OBP) but lack pitching. In fact, Brewers’ bats have been far less effective this year than last, in spite of Fielder’s heroics: the team ranks 17th in batting average, 12th in runs scored, ninth in OBP. Which is to say: the Brewers are right where they should be — they’re a middling team in need of a lot of help, and not just on the mound . . .

The big series of the weekend is not in New York, where “the Nation” faces off against “the Empire,” but in Colorado, where the Rockies take on the McCoveys. The Rockies and Giants are nip and tuck in the NL Wild Card race, but the edge has to go to the Rockies, in spite of San Francisco’s Lincecum-Cain one-two pitching punch. The Rockies have won four in a row, the Giants were beaten in Cincy last night (in a walk-off home run by a Redlegs’ rookie) and the McCoveys are 14th in team hitting in the NL (the Rockies are second). Then too, the Rockies line-up is filled with on-base boppers, while the Giants are thin and getting thinner. The hope for Frisco at the trade deadline was the Freddie Sanchez could fill a hole up-the-middle while providing some pop, but his shoulder is aching. He hopes to return for the Colorado series, but nothing is certain . . .

The McCoveys energized fan base has been decrying the lack of punch all year — and criticizing the front office for the team’s patchwork defense. Bay City Ball opines that Tim Lincecum is worth two Pablo Sandovals and that “outside of Lincecum, Sandoval, and Cain, the Giants don’t have much.” Yeah, that’s right. But for a guy who sits for some 30 games in Nationals Park, Lincecum, Sandoval and Cain sound like a helluvalot . . . for The Giants Baseball Blog, the key is “getting the hitting going” in the upcoming series. The Giants recently added Ryan Garko to their anemic line-up, GBB notes, and “it looks like he’s heating up just in time.” Well, maybe . . . Our favorite, the appropriately named  Dodger Hater, celebrates San Francisco’s gaggle of top-notch arms, but points out the the Giants’ bullpen is good, but not great. The holes are obvious: ” . . . all of us in Giants Nation feel like Bobby Howry is the least trustworthy arm in our pen,” Dodger Hater writes. “Every time Lurch Howry manages to pitch a scoreless inning, we all breathe a sigh of relief” . . . All of this is interesting, but more a comment on Giants’ fans than on the team. The relief pitching might appear shakey, but the McCoveys have the best pitching in all of baseball and have a good shot at catching the Rockies. If they can’t score runs, the least they can do is keep the likes of Helton and Tulowitzki off the bases . . .