The Cubs dismissed G.M. Jim Hendry on Friday — who was tearful and blubbery in his departure (“whaddayou, Jim, some kinda Hollywood finocchio . . .?). But the firing wasn’t exactly a surprise. The Cubs are going nowhere, and a lot of that has to do with the contract decisions that Hendry inked: $136 million to Alfonso Soriano, $91.5 for Carlos Zambrano, $48 million for Kosuke Fukudome and $10 million for a single year to Carlos Pena. The Cubs have started to shed some of that, but they need to do more, a lot more.

Aaron Boone and the BBTN crowd over at ESPN were asked the three things they would do now, if they were the Cubs, and they talked of clubhouse character and finding good talent — all of it good advice. But transforming the Cubs will take more than adding good players at reasonable prices, and saying that the team needs to “change the culture of losing” doesn’t help. What exactly does that mean? So here, unbidden, are our three simple ideas of what the Cubs can do.

First, show some patience. The best pitcher in the Cubs system is now in Tampa Bay — and his name is Chris Archer. The 6-3 righty was traded, with a packet of prospects, for Matt Garza last winter. Garza is plenty good, but Archer could be a lot better. The Cubs will never know, because they got impatient, and Garza looked attractive. This is an almost genetic habit of the North Side Drama Queens. Enough already: develop players and hang on to them. Like they have done (finally, blessedly) with Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney. Listen (you stupid jerks), instead of shipping out Josh Vitters (he can play third, for Aramis Ramirez — who’s going to get injured again, any minute now) and Tyler Colvin, play them. And when they don’t play well, play them anyway . . .

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The Washington Nationals blew an 8-0 lead against the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night, rallied to tie the game at 9, and then lost on a single run — to lose the final game of the team’s set against the Chicago Little Bears, 10-9. The loss was marked by a rare implosion by starter Livan Hernandez, and the Nationals’ bullpen. Hernandez was effective until the 6th, when the Cubs put on a six run push to bring the North Siders to within two. The wind-out-of-the-sails moment  came in that inning when pinch hitter Blake DeWitt put a Hernandez offering off the foul pole in right field.

Even after the DeWitt homer, the Nationals had a chance to win: but reliever Sean Burnett could not hold the surging Cubbies. With Aramis Ramirez on base, Cubs’ first sacker Carlos Pena homered, tying the game at eight. The Cubs scored again, were matched by the Nationals — and then put the game away in the top of the 9th when Darwin Barney doubled, bringing home Tony Campana.

The Thursday loss was particularly disappointing for Nationals’ fans, who have been waiting for the team’s breakout game in a season of close one-run victories. Roger Bernadina (3-6), Danny Espinosa (2-5) Michael Morse (2-5) and Wilson Ramos (1-4) all had big nights at the plate, with Espinosa, Morse and Ramos each contributing two RBIs in the loss. Nats’ manager Davey Johnson blamed himself for the loss, saying that he stuck with Livan Hernandez for too long in the sixth. “I’m going to have a hard time sleeping tonight on that one,” he told reporters following the game.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Nationals’ fans can be justly proud of their young and tough up-the-middle combination of Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa, but Chicago’s shortstop-second base combo might be just as good (or better). While everyone focuses on the wizardry of Cubs’ phenom Starlin Castro, second sacker Darwin Barney is turning into the best second baseman the Cubs have had since the days of Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg. Then too, (in case you haven’t noticed) Barney is emerging as the N.L.’s “other” rookie second sacker — along with Danny Espinosa.

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There’s not a game that goes by without the Nationals partisans of Section 1-2-9 talking at length about the Nationals — why they win, why they lose, and what pieces they need to put in place to become champions. Yesterday’s heroic 5-4 win over the Chicago Cubs proved the exception: there were enough Cubs fans in the crowd (subdued, to be sure — at least in comparison to past years), to turn the section’s attention to the North Side Drama Queens. And their prodigious problems.

“They’re awful,” a Cub’s fan (inhabiting a seat usually reserved for a Nats’ regular) said. “They brought this kid [Casey Coleman] up at the last minute because we’re out of pitching.” The Cubbie rooter spent the game shaking his head. “They’ll find a way to lose,” he said in the 7th inning — after the Nationals tied the game. “You watch.” His words were prophetic.

The Cubs not only gave up the lead in the 7th, they worked diligently to lose the game in extra innings. The talisman of Cubbiedom came in the 10th inning, when Cubs’ reliever Marcos Mateo injured his elbow while pitching to Jayson Werth. After Livan Hernandez sacrificed Werth to second, Cubs skipper Mike Quade stalked to the mound and called in closer Carlos Marmol — who was not expected to pitch.

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You had to see last night’s Cubs game versus the Reds to believe it – or maybe not. Twenty-four hours after Cubs manager Mike Quade had a closed door meeting to chew on his team for their lax play, the Cubs came out and handed the game to their opponents, committing four errors in a 7-5 loss in Cincinnati. And so the North Side Drama Queens are at it again: playing shoddy baseball and taking each other apart in public. “The harping was done last night,” Cubs manager Quade said after the embarrassing loss, “and I guess Knute Rockne I’m not.”

Last night’s game was only typical, in a “let’s watch the tsunami” kind of way. With the Cubs ahead 5-3 in the eighth and Kerry Wood on the mound, the Reds put on a rush: Cincy third sacker Scott Rolen doubled and Fred Lewis followed with an infield single. Wood has been in these kinds of situations before, so no worries — right? But when Wood fielded a Ryan Hanigan single, he threw wide of third, with the ball racing down the left field line. Two runs scored. Wood shook his head. Quade shook his head. And Cubs fans buried their faces in their hands. Pinch-hitter Chris Heisey then added a run on a sacrifice fly and Joey Votto added a double for another run. And that was that.

The same kind of thing happened in the bottom of the fourth, when first baseman Carlos Pena missed a ground ball, which was retrieved by second baseman Darwin Barney, who then threw the ball to Cubs’ starter Mat Garza covering first. Garza threw the ball home to catch a runner. But Garza’s ball was “a little off line” — and ended up in the camera well as the band struck up Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite. “The ball just slipped,” Garza said. Cincy fans, soaked and standing in the fog, couldn’t believe their good fortune. They should know better.

The Cubs, who are headed into Boston for the first time in 90-plus years (we have gained permission to attend from our corporate chairperson — and here she is), are unraveling before their fans’ eyes. Alfonso Soriano is leading the way. While Soriano is hitting the leather off the ball (11 home runs), his play in left field has come to define the team: when he’s not lying on his back and watching the ball go over his head (which he did last week), he’s throwing it to the wrong base — or trotting after it indifferently. To say he lacks hustle is an understatement — he doesn’t seem to care.

Last night, Cincinnati announcers were all over him — and Cubs’ G.M. Jim Hendry: “You know,” Fox Sport Ohio broadcaster Thom Brennaman said, “you look at this team and you look at the size of their payroll and it just doesn’t make sense. I mean, who in their right mind would pay some $130 million or more for this team?” That’s right: the Cubs are paying Soriano $14 million to play poorly, are ponying up $13.5 to Kosuke Fukudome –whom they have no intention of keeping — and are in up to their necks with Carlos Zambrano, who will earn (we use the term loosely) $17.8 million this year and $18 million next year. But that’s not the worst of it.

The Cubs have been diligently developing young talent, but apparently haven’t made a commitment to letting them play. Their best young hitter and outfielder is Tyler Colvin, who was sent down the other day to get playing time at Triple-A. The Cubs think it’s more important to play Fukudome, or Reed Johnson or Pena than Colvin — who might be one of the best young prospects in the game. None of them have a future with the team. Colvin does. The move nearly set off riots on the North Side, and now the fan clamor is growing for Quade’s public execution. The only real player of note in this entire crew is Starlin Castro, who is one of the best young shortstops in baseball — and seems to want to win. But you rarely hear that from Quade, who is more interested in defending his big salary players — which leads Cubs fans to think it’ll be more than a few years before they see some fresh new young faces on the North Side.

The word in Wrigleyville is that it was a mistake to hire Quade, when they could have hired Cubs’ Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, who is more than ready. Everyone, but everyone says Quade is the problem, including Bleacher Report, which blistered the manager for playing favorites among a cast of mediocre players who told Hendry they wanted him (and not Sandberg) as their manager. “What this comes down to is that he is in over his head as the manager of this team,” the BT correspondent wrote. “He thinks things out too much before making out the lineup each day, and over manages to make up for his lack of managerial know-how.” Will the Cubs retrench? Will Hendry recognize the error of his ways, fire Quade and hire disciplinarian Sandberg? Will he? Huh? Will he . . . will he . . . will he? Nahhhhhh . . . but you can be sure that if he did, that would be the day that Soriano watched the game from the bench, and Tyler Colvin started.

The Washington Nationals dipped below .500, dropping a rain rescheduled game to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-2 on Monday night. The Nats, still struggling at the plate, could not solve Ahoy lefty Paul Maholm, who threw seven innings of four hit baseball. “Maholm shut us down,” Nats’ skipper Jim Riggleman said after the game. “We hit a couple balls decent that they made some plays on. We really couldn’t elevate too many balls on him and get anything in the air to carry out in the gap or go over the fence.” Maholm, who has struggled in the early going, notched his first win.

Once again, the Nationals (who were much more worried about their starting pitching at the beginning of the year), were outhit — 6 to 5, with several Nationals (mostly the veteran off-the-bench players) mired in deep slumps. The Nats have been outhit in eight of the last ten games and remain 15th in N.L. team batting average and dead last in hits. The Nationals will open up against the Mets tonight in a three game set, before facing the world champion San Francisco Giants this weekend.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: If you didn’t see Jered Weaver’s complete game shutout of the Oakland A’s last night from Anaheim, you missed a gem. Weaver dominated the A’s, registering his sixth straight win, the most by any major league pitcher before April 25. Every year has it surprises, and this is one of them: Weaver is the best pitcher in the game. Weaver leads the major leagues in wins, ERA and strikeouts, after being 13-12 with an MLB leading 233 strike outs last year . . .

There were less than ideal conditions for playing baseball in Chicago last night — not only was it 43 degrees and wet (miserable, actually), but the North Side Drama Queens were on the field facing the we-can-do-no-wrong Heltons. The Rockies won, 5-3 — but in looking at the box score you have to wonder why. The Cubs rapped out 11 hits, but scored only 3, while the Rockies were held to four hits, and scored five. Kosuke Fukudome went 5-5 and raised his out-of-the-gates average to .478. Down behind the Cubs dugout, fans were razzing him: “Where the hell have you been?”

So why did the Cubs lose? Well, let’s see: the long ball was nowhere to be found (rookie Darwin Barney had a single dinger), Chicago’s heavy hitters (Alfonso Soriano, Giovany Soto and Carlos Pena) were of-fer ten and, oh yeah . . . shortstop wunderkind Starlin Castro committed three errors. The grass was slick, the announcers said. The weather was cold, the announcers said. Well, okay. But the grass was as slick and the weather as cold for Troy Tulowitzki, who was as smooth as silk on the other side of the diamond. “If you’re going to get beat, you at least would not like to gift wrap the damned thing for the opposition,” Cubs manager Mike Quade said after the game.

The hitting of Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez and the stellas pitching of John Lannan paced the Washington Nationals to a 9-2 victory over the Pirates at PNC Park on Saturday. Rodriguez led the Nats’ fifteen hit attack, with an opposite field home run, while John Lannan pitched seven complete — giving up only five hits. It was his best outing of the year and solidified his place in the rotation for 2011. “Pudge and I did a great job just mixing it up on both sides of the plate,” Lannan said after the game. “I threw some [four-seam fastballs] inside to righties and some [two-seam fastballs] into lefties. I had my changeup working again, and that’s been the pitch I’ve gone to if I was getting behind hitters. It kept them off-balance a little bit. You get a little more comfortable out there when your team puts up that many runs.”

Desmond Makes His Case: Washington Nationals’ rookie shortstop Ian Desmond is making a strong case for being considered as the N.L.’s premier rookie. But two obstacles stand in his way — he makes too many errors (31! — including two last night), and the competition is stiff. The early betting was that Atlanta’s Jason Heyward would win the award, and for a time it looked like he would. Heyward set the baseball world chattering through April and May, but his production fell off through the summer. Still: .282 with 16 home runs (and he’s only 20) could find him shoehorned into the top spot. The betting now seems to be that Buster Posey will get the nod — despite the fact that he started the season late. Tim Dierkes over at MLB Trade Rumors posted a list in April that included all of the good guesses, which included Heyward and Desmond, as well as Florida’s Gaby Sanchez, San Francisco’s Buster Posey, Chicago’s Starlin Castro, Pittsburgh’s Pedro Alvarez, Washington’s Drew Storen (and Stephen Strasburg), and Cincinnati’s Mike Leake. That leaves out Cubbie Tyler Colvin, who’s having a tremendous year — he’s stroked 19 home runs.

You can make a strong case for Desmond, who has raised his batting average over the last month from the so-so mid-.260s to .287 — an unforeseen spike that, if it continues, could see the 24-year-old ending the season near .300. And Desmond has unpredicted power, line-driving nine home runs. That number could easily increase in 2011. Desmond’s long-ball potential is a plus for the Nats, who would gladly take a .280 batting average with a handful of home runs each year — but 20? 25? Desmond says that he patterns his play on the model provided by Empire glove man Derek Jeter and his numbers show it. While Jeter seems to be struggling for homers as he ages, the pinstriper once hit 24, a number well within reach of his younger apprentice. But Jeter’s value is his day-in-and-day-out crusade in the middle of the Yankees infield, his ability to play virtually injury free and his steady glove-work. Ah, and he has a .314 lifetime BA — which Desmond might find difficult to equal. Desmond is right to emulate his hero, but he has a long way to go to reach his level (cutting down on the errors would be the way to start). It’s the fielding stats that will likely doom Desmond in any final voting for the Jackie Robinson Award, which means that Giants workhorse Buster Posey will get the nod. It’s hard to argue with that choice — with a .328 batting average, he deserves it.

Atlanta Braves hurler Derek Lowe is puzzled: while the Braves sometime ace remains an effective starter against much of the National League (even while sporting a so-so 11-11 record), he can’t seem to beat the Nats. The last time Lowe beat the Anacostia Nine was last August, but he’s been winless against the Nats Nine since, a record of futility that the imposing righthander (6-5, 230) has trouble squaring with Washington’s losing record. “I can’t remember the last time that I beat the Nationals,” Lowe said in the wake of the Tomahawks’ 6-2 loss to the Nationals on Thursday. “They’ve given me a rough time.” But it was not so much Lowe’s pitching (seven innings with 6 hits), as it was a combination of the pitching from Washington starter John Lannan (who went a strong 5.1) and a no-hits bullpen that caused the Braves fits. When coupled with big hits from Michael Morse and Willie Harris, the Nats looked unstoppable, picking up a much-needed win (that’s number 52 on the season). The Nats now head into Philadelphia, where they’ll face the red-hot Ashburns.

The Quicker Picker Upper: The inevitable has happened in Chicago, with Cubs’ General Manager Jim Hendry cleaning out the stables of the sinking-like-a-stone North Side Drama Queens. The trade of the ever-popular Ryan Theriot and Ted Lilly (their most effective starter) to Los Angeles at the trade deadline was followed by the careless unloading of steady but unimpressive Mike Fontenot to the McCoveys. Now, in what can only be considered an official waving of the white flag, the Cubs have unloaded their most productive, good-glove-and-bat first baseman Derrek Lee, who went to the Braves for three maybes. The successive trades mark a generational shift in the future of the Cubs, as the front office has apparently decided that Theriot-Lilly-Fontenot-Lee powerhouse of just a few years ago has gotten too old and too mediocre to bring a pennant (or World Series championship) to the Windy City. The issue is not whether the trades should have been made, but why they weren’t made earlier. “None of us thought this was going to happen this year. We really didn’t,” Hendry said in annoucing the trade of Lee. ”It will be good for (Lee) and from that regard, I’m happy for him. But the overall situation we’re in kind of makes us all stumble between miserable and sad every day.”

Miserable? Sad? The Cubs just dropped four straight to the Padres and are a worse team than the Nats — much worse. So while Cubs fans might have been expected to be marching on Wrigley in protest at Lee’s departure, the Cubs blogosphere has viewed the trade as inevitable — and necessary. Al Yellon over at Bleed Cubbie Blue probably said it best, mixing respect for Lee with a sighing confirmation that the Cubs’ future did not include the impressive first baseman. “I salute D-Lee for his classy demeanor on and off the field,” Yellon wrote. “Some here complain that he wasn’t demonstrative enough on the field and though he was seen as a team leader, many wanted him to ‘show it’ more, though I’m not quite sure how you do that.” While Cubs fans remain oddly contemplative (there’s usually lynching parties at this point) the scapegoating of Hendry (well, perhaps for good reason) and the coaching staff has begun.

That’s probably unnecessary. The imminent departure of Lou Piniella is bound to be followed by the displacement of pitching coach Larry Rothschild, as the Ricketts’ family retools to a younger staff that reflects a younger team. Is there reason for hope? Yes. And no. The Cubs are able to field one of the game’s best young outfielders in Tyler Colvin and one of its best young shortstops in Starlin Castro. But the team’s starting pitching is a catastrophe — with few young phenoms coming up in the minors. Which is why Hendry is trading his front line for a few maybes, all of them arms. Which means that the Cubs new rotation and bullpen (with some exceptions) is now filled with a gaggle of no-names, like Thomas Diamond, Justin Berg, Mitch Atkins, Marcos Mateo and James Russell — each of these guys with (as they say) “a tremendous upside.” Roughly translation: we might, or might not, ever hear of them again.