“Tommy was real impressive,” Nats’ manager Davey Johnson said of Tom Milone after the Nats dealt the Phillies a 4-3 defeat in ten innings on Tuesday afternoon. “He showed me a lot.” Milone pitched a solid six innings of shutout ball against the Phillies, giving up just four hits and striking out two.

But Milone’s probable win was erased by the Philllies in the bottom of the seventh, when Doug Slaten and Tyler Clippard couldn’t hold the heavy hitting Phillies, who tied the game on a Nats’ killer Raul Ibanez home run. Ibanez’s soaring dinger came off Tyler Clippard with two on base, and erased the heroics of Roger Bernadina, who had put one into the right field seats in the top of the frame.

It wasn’t until the 10th inning that the Nationals could strike back: with two out, Michael Morse walked (and went to second on a passed ball), Danny Espinosa was intentionally walked and pinch hitter Ryan Zimmerman singled to bring in Espinosa with the go-ahead run. Drew Storen came on in the bottom of the tenth (it was another nail biter) and recorded his 39th save.

Ahead Of The Mets In The N.L. East: The Washington Nationals scrubbed the New York Madoffs at Citi Field this afternoon, 10-1 — thereby notching a four game sweep of their division rivals. The win featured a pitching gem from rookie September call-up Tom Milone, and a 5-6 day at the plate from shortstop Ian Desmond. This was the first sweep of a four game series by the Nationals since they swept the Braves in four games in 2009.

Milone’s first win of the year was well-deserved. The young lefty gave up just three hits in 5.2 innings, while striking out four. “I think he had everything working for him,” Nats’ manager Davey Johnson said after the victory. “He had them all messed up. They were talking to themselves. He jammed a lot of guys, who missed by a mile. It was a really fun game to watch. He was totally in command.”

Desmond, meanwhile, moved his batting average into the respectable range — an improvement of some thirty points since the All Star break. Desmond gives Davey Johnson credit for turning him around: the manager said that Desmond has enough power not to attempt to hit everything to right field, and now Desmond is pulling the ball more. “Everybody has been able to give me good advice,” Desmond said following his 5-6 outing. “I’ve been able to take the things that are successful and disregard the things that aren’t and go from there.”

The Nationals scored in the fifth, seventh and eighth innings, but they piled it on in the 9th, which began with yet another fielding error by David Wright (his 19th of the year) to lead off the inning. Danny Espinosa doubled, Chris Marrero followed with a sacrifice fly (that scored a run), Wilson Ramos scored Espinosa, Roger Bernadina singled, and Ian Desmond doubled — scoring two. In all, the Nationals scored four runs in the ninth.

Jordan Zimmermann (with help from Ryan Mattheus, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen) pitched Washington to a 2-0 shutout win over the Colorado Rockies on Sunday — a victory that ensured that the Anacostia Nine will finish the first half of the 2011 campaign at .500. The Nationals’ win came on a broken bat single by Roger Bernadina that scored Ian Desmond. Rick Ankiel added a solo home run for the second score.

Zimmermann’s outing ended after a single out in the 7th inning — much to the puzzlement of fans — after breezing through the Colorado line-up. Zimmermann was never in any trouble in the game, but Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson wanted to go his bullpen to seal the victory. “I’m sure everybody in the stands thought I gave him a quick hook,” Johnson said. “And it probably was.”

Zimmermann has emerged as Washington’s staff ace and his win was his sixth of the season. “When you’re in a close game, you never really are too sure what’s going to happen, but Jordan was phenomenal,” Washington reliever Tyler Clippard said. “He’s kind of proven to everyone in the league what kind of pitcher he is, and what kind of pitcher we all knew he could be.” Zimmermann’s record now stands at 6-7, but his ERA is a sparkling 2.66.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The regular announcing crew of Orel Hershiser and Bobby Valentine for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball laced into the New York Mets last night during the Mets-Giants telecast from San Francisco. The criticisms were breathtaking: Valentine went after the coaching staff on placement of outfielders, Hershiser talked about Pelfrey’s “questionable” delivery (“he has no foundation”), and both went after Daniel Murphy’s indifferent defense at third base: “he’s very tentative over there” . . .

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Wilson Ramos missed a sign in the seventh inning on Wednesday, hitting away while Michael Morse sprinted down the third base line on a called squeeze play. Ramos realized what was happening just in time, fouled off the pitch, then walked up the third base line to consult with third base coach Bo Porter. After taking the next pitch, Ramos got it right — laying down a perfect bunt to score Morse and secure yet another one run victory (a 5-4 win), their third in a row against the cratering Cubs.

Calling for a second squeeze after a blown first one is risky. Which is why Davey Johnson figured the Cubs wouldn’t be ready. “You look at the situation, and all the components actually work to our favor,” Porter said after the victory. “You have a guy who doesn’t run as well at the plate. You have a guy who doesn’t run that well at third base and you don’t really want to send him on contact. And in all of my years of baseball, I’ve always said this: Catchers are normally the best bunters.”

The Nationals win tied them with the New York Mets in the N.L. East and put them two games over .500. But three other story lines emerged on Wednesday: Ryan Zimmerman finally seemed to get on track (3-4, with two RBIs and his fourth homer), the Nats’ line-up busted out for 13 hits (Bernadina, Morse and Ramos had two each), and the Nationals’ bullpen once again came through in the late innings: Ryan Mattheus, Henry Rodriguez and Drew Storen combined to hold the Slugs to one hit and no runs — standard work for a unit that keeps the team in games and the Nats in the win column.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Cubbie fans are beside themselves with worry. Bleed Cubbie Blue points out that the North Side Drama Queens are 5-26 when they allow opponents to score in the first inning — which they have done in all three of their losses against the Nationals . . .

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So here’s the thinking, or presumably so: because the Nationals are near dead last in hitting in the majors, the powers that be have decided to shift the batting order, moving players in and out of the lead-off spot and juggling through a series of middle-order options in an attempt to “get the bats going.” Nothing seems to have worked, though sometimes (as with putting Jayson Werth up top), the attempts have been pretty creative. The most recent thinking is that what the Nationals really need is a good lead-off hitter, a set-up guy that would allow big-bangers like Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse (and, ostensibly, a revived Werth), to drive him in.

The thinking isn’t all the bad, though it comes with some caveats — it’s made on the assumption that Roger “The Shark” Bernadina is not built to lead-off, that the Werth experiment was more an attempt to get him going than to really fill a top-of-the-order need and (embarrassingly), Rick Ankiel just hasn’t worked out. Which leaves the Nats where they are: searching for a lead-off hitter with a high OBP who can also play centerfield. The latter requirement is apparently the result of front office thinking that Bernadina who sometimes is (but mostly isn’t) the team’s go-to guy at the top of the order. Three names have been mentioned.

The most recent is Julio Borbon, the Texas Rangers’ sometime lead-off guy who is currently playing in Triple-A for the Round Rock Express — “an athletic position player” who (whether he worked in the lead-off spot or not) could hit for average, get on base, be a threat on the base paths and be a solid defensive outfielder. Borbon might be a good choice, and perhaps cost less than the other two names mentioned: the Rays’ B.J. Upton or the Astros’ Michael Bourn. The problem with both of these latter “solutions” is that they would be expensive — with teams around the league apparently agreed that the player-to-get would be reliever Tyler Clippard, one of the very best set-up men in the game.

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The qualities that have made the Nationals one of the hottest teams in baseball failed them on Sunday afternoon, as the Washington Nine dropped the last in their three game series against the Orioles, 7-4 at Nationals Park. Returning starting pitcher Tom Gorzelanny was shaky in pitching just 4.2 innings (he gave up ten hits and four runs), the Washington bullpen was just so-so (Collin Ballester appeared, but didn’t impress), and — perhaps most worrisome — the Nationals committed three errors.

The disturbing reversion to form, however, seems more like a hiccup that a talisman of future performance: Ryan Zimmerman is back in the line-up, Michael Morse has claimed first base as his own, and it’s likely the strong-up-the-middle Nationals will remain so. “It’s a long season, and you’re going to have a couple games where you play terrible defensively,” third sacker Ryan Zimmerman said after the loss. “The thing is you just have to learn and realize that’s why you lost the game. When we won all those games in a row, it was because we were playing good defense and doing the little things right.”

The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: It’s been three weeks since reports surfaced that the Nationals were inquiring about Houston outfielder Michael Bourn, but Nats fans are still talking about it. The consensus, at least in 1-2-9, is that the the inquiry is evidence that the team doesn’t realize what it has in Roger Bernadina. “Rizzo and crew have the solution to their lead-off and centerfield problem right in front of his eyes,” a 1-2-9 regular said on Friday. “They’ve got to give this guy a clear shot. He’s getting better every day.” There wasn’t much disagreement, even as 1-2-9′ers agreed on Bourn’s talents.

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The Washington Nationals rapped out a meager eight hits and fell to the Mets in rain-soaked New York, 3-0. The key to the Mets victory was the steady pitching of starter Jonathon Niese, who threw seven complete and held the Nationals scoreless. The only Nationals’ player who seemed on track was Michael Morse, who started in left field after nearly a week of seeing sparse duty. Morse was 2-4 and raised his average on the season to .258 — which marks him as one of the better batsman in the Nationals’ anemic line-up.

Nationals’ manager Jim Riggleman, who usually answers questions on the team’s hitting by saying that it’ll all work out in the end, has apparently stopped searching for an explanation. “There are no excuses,” he said in the clubhouse after the game. “We are playing defense, [we are] pitching, but we just haven’t been on track [hitting-wise]. I really don’t have an explanation for it.” Even Roger Bernadina, who started his stint with the Nationals by hitting the ball well, has now apparently been hit by the no-hit bug: his average is down to .293, a fall of 71 points over the last two weeks.

While there’s no easy explanation for the continuing drought, Adam LaRoche thinks that if he started hitting, then the rest of the team would follow: “I feel like I’m close one day and not the next,” LaRoche said. “It’s getting frustrating trying to find it. Obviously, I’ve learned how to get out of it. I wound up OK. I just haven’t figured out how to get on the right track and that’s the frustrating part. For whatever reason, I feel like if I get going, I think other guys fall in and start hitting, too.” LaRoche is hitting .177 and looks so bad at the plate that Nats’ fans are beginning to view him as an automatic out everytime he steps into the batter’s box.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Metropolitans may have finally found their second baseman, though he’s playing third for the time being. Justin Turner (above, against the Nats last night) has played just 38 games in the show in his entire career, but it appears he knows how to handle a bat. The 5-11 26-year-old graduate of baseball powerhouse Fresno State took his good sweet time in getting to the majors — kicking around such hot spots as Billings, Dayton and Chattanooga before winding up in New York. He’s an interesting story, the victim of a vicious beaning during Fresno State’s run at the College World Series back in 2006 — when the Titans were eliminated by UNC.

Turner was beaned in an attempted bunt. The ball hit him flush in the left cheekbone and he crumpled to the ground, inadvertantly planting his ankle as his body twisted. Turner ended up none the worse for wear from the beaning, but he broke his ankle. After being examined by doctors for damage to his cheek and an MRI which checked for a concussion, Turner was about to be released. “Even when I got the hospital, they did all the CT scans, MRI stuff,” Turner said. “And they were about to send me out. And I was like, ‘Dude, what about my ankle?’”

That Turner might end up as the Mets’ regular at second base shows you just how thin New York’s farm system is — and how injuries have damaged the Apples’ starting nine. Turner started at third last night because David Wright (a stress fracture in his lower back) is out for two weeks, as is Ike Davis, the regular first baseman. The injuries forced Daniel Murphy to play first and shifted Turner to third. New York’s backing and filling must be wearing thin: Angel Pagan is rehabbing from an oblique injury, and the Mets have been shuffling players between the big club and their Triple-A affiliate.

In many ways, however, the injuries could be viewed as a chance for the franchise to see younger players — and determine who will be available at the trade deadline. At least the Mets will be able to get a good assessment of whether guys like Turner can play. Still, the Mets’ outlook isn’t good. Turner is a case in point, for while he looks strong enough now, he’s not a product of the Mets’ farm system: the team got him off the waiver wire from the Orioles — who got him in a trade with Cincinnati. New York baseball writers are putting as good a face on this as they can, saying that the kids are showing just how tough they can be. We don’t buy it, and our guess is that Mets’ fans don’t either. Earlier this year, ESPN’s Keith Law ranked the Mets’ farm system 26th in Major League Baseball.