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.

The headline on the Washington Nationals’ website is all about John Lannan, and how he struggles against the Philadelphia Phillies. But the story on Saturday night, when the Nationals were dumped by the Ponies (by an it-wasn’t-even-close 5-to-zip score) had little to do with Lannan — and an awful lot to do with Roy Oswalt.

Oswalt, who’s suffered through a 2011 campaign with a bad back, was at his best on Saturday, scattering eight hits over eight innings while shutting out a Nationals’ team that couldn’t put together any kind of offense. Oswalt’s outing was good news for the Phillies, who will depend on their starters in the post-season. “He’s back,” Phellow Phil Cole Hamels said. “I think that’s pretty much it. He’s back. When he has the velocity, you know it’s game time.” The only threat against Oswalt came from Ryan Zimmerman, who was 3-4 and continued his rocket-like ascent into the top tier of N.L. hitters.

Facing off against Oswalt, Lannan was just average — which wasn’t nearly good enough. The Nationals lefty, who has compiled a good season (8-9 with a 3.61 ERA), couldn’t keep the heavy hitting Phillies off the base paths. That said, his five inning three earned run outing deserved better, as the team played poorly behind him. The resulting loss came at the hands of Wilson Valdez, whose triple scored two and Hunter Pence, who parked one in the left field bleachers.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Nationals packed the ballpark on Saturday (setting a single game attendance record), as busloads of Phillies’ fans came down from the north to root for their best-record nine. The Nationals are 22nd in attendance this year, which isn’t all that bad when you consider their record. The Nationals have put people in the stands at a much better clip than other (better), teams . . . including the Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Rays and Indians . . .

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Major pieces of the Washington Nationals’ pitching staff collapsed on Saturday in Los Angeles, leading the way for a dramatic one run L.A. walk off win in the ninth inning, 7-6. The Nationals’ game began to unravel in the bottom of the third, with Washington enjoying a 6-2 lead. That might have been enough on any other night, but it was not enough on Saturday.

In the bottom of the third, the Dodgers’ mounted a three run comeback that culminated in a double off the bat of pitcher Ted Lilly that scored Juan Rivera and Juan Uribe. The Lilly double ended starter Tom Gorzelanny’s three inning outing, as he was replaced in the fourth by lefty long reliever Ross Detwiler. “It was awful pitching — plain and simple,” Gorzelanny said following his outing. “I couldn’t throw anywhere in. I was leaving balls up. I wasn’t able to command the fastball.”

But Gorzelanny wasn’t the only Nats’ pitcher who performed poorly. After 2.2 solid innings from Detwiler (whose performances are cementing his spot in the bullpen), and with the Nationals still holding a 6-5 lead, Henry Rodriguez allowed the Dodgers to tie the Nationals at six. Witn one out in the bottom of the seventh, Rodriguez walked Dioner Navarro and Rafael Furcal, then launched a wild pitch to the backstop that allowed pinch runner Eugenio Valez to score.

Sean Burnett came in in relief of Rodriguez and successfully put out the fire but, after an effective eighth inning, Nats’ reliever Ryan Mattheus couldn’t hold L.A. The Dodgers scored in a walk off in the bottom of the ninth inning on a double from Rafael Furcal that scored Trent Oeltjen. Davey Johnson was irriated, but philosophical about the loss: “It was just a bad outing for a couple of guys,” he said.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Ryan Zimmerman has weighed in on a potential trade for B.J. Upton. “B.J. is a very talented player. I think a lot of people still think he is going to improve a lot. He has all the tools. He is one of those guys who can run, throw and hit for power. He is a very gifted athlete . . . ”

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John Lannan pitched into the sixth inning and contributed two hits, and catcher Wilson Ramos hit his ninth home run, as the Washington Nationals defeated the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field, 5-2 on Saturday night. The victory, sparked (oddly) by Lannan’s bat, brought the Nats back to .500 — one-half game behind the New York Mets in the N.L. East.

Lannan provided another solid start to what has to now be considered a very successful 2011 campaign by the savvy lefty. But Lannan’s hits were the surprise of the game. He had two in all, his first two of the year, and his first two in 32 at bats. “We have been taking a lot of BP. I have been struggling out there,” Lannan said after the victory. “I never was a really good hitter. Some days, I get good pitches to hit and I was able to hit it back up the middle. Every starter up here is difficult to hit.”

The Nationals were able to tack on runs in the otherwise tight ballgame when Ramos homered with one on in the sixth. The Ramos dinger landed well back in the left field bleachers. “We are used to one-run leads, but that was big. That made us all feel a lot easier,” Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson said of the Ramos home run. “He is a great young catcher. He is looking good.”

Lannan was helped by his bullpen, which held the Braves scoreless in the game’s last innings. Ryan Mattheus, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen combined for 3.1 innings of work, giving up no hits and no runs. Drew Storen pitched the ninth inning, notching his 24th save. It was Clippard’s 24th hold.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: John Lackey’s in-game antics are starting to get old, according to the commenters on “Baseball Tonight.” Lackey threw up his arms during Boston’s 9-5 win against Tampa Bay yesterday when Marco Scutaro boofed a grounder and Adrian Gonzalez followed suit. Then Lackey let manager Terry Francona have it when he was lifted with two outs in the sixth, mouthing guttural out loud condemnations that anyone with eyes could lip-read.

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With the MLB trade deadline looming, rumors of what the Washington Nationals will — and won’t — do are now beginning to circulate. This morning, commenter and analyst Buster Olney, wrote that “the dam is about ready to burst on the trade market,” with teams looking for a way to help themselves (or wave the white flag), before the end of July. The Tigers are looking for pitching, the Philllies are looking for a bat, and Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez is on everyone’s radar screen.

What will the Nationals do? G.M. Mike Rizzo isn’t exactly saying, though he notes that the team could be “both buyers and sellers” at the trade deadline. We have no clue what that means, which was obviously Rizzo’s intent. Still, the Nationals have been actively talking about acquiring a lead-off hitter (Michael Bourn’s name has been mentioned), and they have apparently inquired about Tampa’s B.J. Upton. There was even talk that the Nationals are willing to trade All-Star reliever Tyler Clippard in an attempt to answer some of their outfield problems.

There’s no question, a B.J. Upton trade would be intriguing: back in mid-June, Ken Rosenthal said that Upton could be had for the right price — with the Nationals ponying up a hot young infield prospect in a package with Clippard that would bring the then-struggling Upton to Washington. Rosenthal’s thinking was compelling: if the Rays fall out of contention, they could off-load Upton, and save themselves some future bucks. Hmmmmm. And, as Rosenthal noted then: Todd Coffey is being eyed by a number of teams who need a good righty out of the bullpen.

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When the Chicago Cubs were desperate for pitching during the off-season, they dangled a boat load of prospects to Tampa Bay for Matt Garza, the imposing right hander (6-4, 215) who could add stability to their weirdly dysfunctional starting four. The Rays were all ears: they were in the midst of losing star-to-be Carl Crawford to Boston and needed to build for the future. This was a typical North Side Drama Queen move — trading the future (including Chris Archer, their best young pitching prospect) for a mediocre present. It’s not that Matt Garza is a bad pitcher (he’s not), it’s just that he’s not going to keep the Cubs from falling through the floor. Which. Is. Where. They’re. Headed.

Parting with Garza was something the Rays were going to have to do, but for the Cubs the price was steep. There was Archer and Hak-Ju Lee, a faster-than-a-speeding-bullet shortstop who wasn’t going to be in Chicago anytime soon, as well as almost ready outfielder Brandon Guyer and infielder Robinson Chirinos. That’s a hell of a haul, but not enough for the Rays, who were going to give up some youngsters of their own, including outfielder Fernando Perez and mystery pitcher Zach Rosscup, a kid with a lively arm. The Rays might have sealed this deal, but they wanted midget outfielder Sam Fuld in addition to what they were getting, and the Cubs agreed. While the powers-that-be later headlined the trade as “Garza for Fuld plus prospects,” Fuld was actually a throw in — a nice defensive outfield addition for those days that Manny Ramirez decided he wanted to do something else.

So here we are in April, Manny Ramirez is in Spain, Matt Garza is struggling in Chicago, Perez is hitting .235 in Triple-A Iowa and “throw in” Sam Fuld is hitting .321 and flashing his leather for the Rays in the outfield. Last night, in the pure hell that has become Fenway Park, Fuld was 4-6, scored three, plated three RBIs and made a diving catch in the fifth inning on a line-drive off the bat of Dustin “our Lord and Savior” Pedroia. It was quite a night for the New Hampshire native (30 family members were in the stands to see him), who grew up watching the Red Sox on television. Fuld was thrilled: “I think I had a little more adrenalin tonight, just playing in this park that I grew up going to,” he said after the Rays notched a 16-5 victory.

Fuld is scrappy and a great defensive addition to the Rays; and you never know, he might actually do some hitting. He was always an afterthought in Chicago, where he barely laid his bat on the ball. But he got some attention, primarily because of his all-out attitude. Fuld was never rated a top prospect by Baseball America, or really latched on to by the Cubs front office, and his size (he’s an exaggerated 5-10) worked against him. No one in the Cubs organization was sorry to see him go — he just couldn’t hit, just like that other no-name the Cubs traded, some fifty years ago now. What was his name?

The book on David Price reads something like this: the 25-year-old has a great fastball and pinpoint accuracy. He’s tough, he’s competitive, he’s a already a superstar. And from time to time, and for absolutely no reason at all, he loses confidence and focus. This usually happens in the 5th or 6th innings. It’s a puzzle. Of course, this complaint is nit-picky; Price was 19-6 last year and one of the dominant pitchers in the American League. He’s Cy Young material. So, no problem. Right? Well, maybe — and maybe not. Price’s habit of losing focus not only makes him merely human, the Tampa Bay brain trust is worried that it could lead to bigger problems.

The nit-picky problem with Price was on full display last night in the Rays’ Opening Day tilt against the Baltimore Orioles. The Fighting Showalters couldn’t do anything with Price through four innings as he moved his fastball (clocked at 98 mph) in and out and up-and-down in the strike zone. But he wasn’t getting the inside corner and, in the 5th inning, he decided he would start moving his fastball out over the plate and rely more on his curve. But here was the problem: the Orioles hadn’t really touched his fastball — so why change? Never mind: Price decided that while he was pitching well, he wasn’t pitching well enough. The perfect became the enemy of the good. In the 5th, as Price was losing his razor short first-four-innings focus, the Orioles touched him for three runs.

The Price story is all over Tampa this morning, with little heed given there to Jeremy Guthrie’s seemingly effortless gem. But it was hardly effortless. After the Orioles put their first win in the books, Guthrie told MASN viewers what they could find out from watching the game: he has mastered his 12-6 curve, a biting overhand offering that set Tampa hitters back on their heels. “We’ve seen Guthrie with that kind of stuff,” O’s catcher Matt Wieters said after the game, “but to be able to do that on Opening Day against a good lineup, that’s pretty special right there.” Guthrie’s triumph is good news for the O’s, who ought to have plenty of hitting, but are a little short on arms. “He was awesome,” said second baseman Brian Roberts said of Guthrie. “I think we believe that Guthrie can beat anybody.” Last night, in a game worth watching, Guthrie was confident and tough. David Price wasn’t.