Here is the new starting rotation of the Philadelphia Phillies: Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels — and Cliff Lee. Lee, the cherry-on-the-cake free agent of major league baseball, has signed a five year $120 million deal with the Phillies, a surprise for the Yankees and Rangers (who reportedly outbid the Phillies), and one that probably puts the N.L. East out of reach for the Braves, Marlins, Mets and Washington Nationals. The Phillies are now the favorites to win not only the division, but the N.L. pennant, as they feature the best starting rotation in the game. What can the Nationals do? The current thinking is that the best response for Mike Rizzo & Co. would be to sign a front-of-the-rotation pitcher (like Carl Pavano) or swing a trade for Matt Garza or Zack Greinke that would make the club competitive. The Nats are, seemingly, in no hurry — though all three of their prospective targets could easily sign elsewhere: the Twins likely have the inside track to sign Pavano, Garza will cost the Nats more than they might be willing to pay (perhaps Ian Desmond, certainly Jordan Zimmermann) and Kansas City has already let it be known that the Nats do not match up well on a Greinke trade.

Lee’s decision to re-up with Philly (where he had pitched before being shipped out to Seattle), has shocked the baseball world. The Yankees and Rangers were thought to be Lee’s first choices, with the Rangers seemingly leading the pack. A third “mystery team” was said to be in the mix: we at CFG had guessed it was the Angels. It’s easy to see why Lee signed with the Phillies, though — as a line-up that includes Halladay, Oswalt and Hamels looks unbeatable: which would give Lee the World Series ring that he covets. Indeed, the Phillies starting rotation may be the best in baseball since Greg Maddux and John Smoltz anchored the Braves starting four in the mid-90s.  MLB Trade Rumors draws some important lessons from the Lee signing: don’t make any assumptions about what a player wants, players can leave big money on the table, teams can change their minds (the Phillies made a mistake in shipping Lee to Seattle — and brought him back), the Yankees don’t always get their man, every off season has its share of surprises and you can never have too much pitching. All of that sounds right.

How should the Nationals respond? Our view is simple: they shouldn’t. While Mike Rizzo has let it be known that there are two “untouchables” on the Washington Nine (Ryan Zimmerman and, now, Jayson Werth), we would add a third: Jordan Zimmermann. What’s the point of developing pitching if you’re going to ship it to Tampa or Kansas City? Zimmermann has the command and control to be a front line pitcher in the N.L. — and neither Garza or Greinke are going to give the team the horse they need to compete with Philadelphia. It would be better to sign Pavano, if possible, or swing a trade for a mid-rotation righty that would upgrade the starting staff without gutting either the farm system or trading away the future. Anything can happen in baseball, and Philadelphia’s signing of Cliff Lee is not a guarantee that they will outgun and outpitch the Nationals this year. But let’s be realistic: the Phillies aren’t suddenly the odds-on favorite in the NL Least by accident.

The Texas Rangers will face the New York Yankees for the A.L. Championship, thanks to the pitching of starting lefty Cliff Lee. Lee pitched nine complete innings, giving up just six hits in the Rangers’ 5-1 victory. Lee has been the difference in the post-season — continuing a trend that has seen dominant post-season performances from starters across the major leagues. “I expected to have success,” Lee said, following the victory. “I expected to pitch well. I just didn’t necessarily expect to allow one run and go nine innings.” Lee did not walk a batter and struck out 11. Lee’s performance puts an exclamation point to the trade that sent Rangers’ prospect Justin Smoak and three minor leaguers to the Seattle Mariners for the lefty — whose presence on the Rangers’ mound was the final piece for a team that had (until Tuesday), never won a post-season playoff series.

And We’re Back: CFG’s short post-season hiatus is over, thanks to the end of nearly two weeks of travels to exotic and faraway destinations — and (then too), it’s damned hard to ignore a post-season match-up that will feature two of the game’s best pitchers (Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay) in a classic face-off at “the Bank” in Philly. The early, anecdotal, line on the Philadelphia-San Francisco series gives the Ponies the edge, if only slightly: they feature a homer-heavy line-up, while the Giants have struggled for runs. But don’t bet against the Giants, whose run-producing capabilities increased sharply with the arrival of Buster Posey. And you  have to wonder whether the tussle in Philadelphia will fuel the competitive edge of a player like Pat Burrell, a former first round pick of the Phillies, who seems suddenly comfortable in a Giants uniform. While the Giants are justly proud of knocking off the Atlanta Braves, their post-season numbers are sobering: they plated only 11 runs against an anemic Braves’ line-up. They’ll have to do a lot better than that to beat the Phillies. Everyone talks about the heart-stopping triumverate of Lincecum, Cain and Sanchez, but the key to the series may well come down to whether Buster Posey, Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff can hit Philly pitching.

Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn homered, and Jason Marquis pitched 5.2 solid innings to lead the Nationals to a 9-3 victory over the Florida Marlins in Miami on Monday night. The win was the third in a row for the Nationals — a “laugher” — who have energized their sudden surge by scoring 40 runs in the last five games. On Monday, the Zimmerman-Dunn combination accounted for seven of the nine runs, as Zimmerman hit his 25th and Dunn hit his 33rd home runs. Roger Bernadina and Michael Morse also continued their offensive assault, with both accounting for two hits. The sudden plate production stands in stark contrast to the Nats of just a week ago — when the Anacostia Nine had difficulty scoring against the Braves, Phillies and Cubs, and dropped seven of nine games.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains: It was a bad night for Florida baseball. The official attendance for the Nats-Marlins tilt was given as 18,326, but after a nearly three hour rain delay the Marlins were playing in front of hundreds — not thousands. In the seventh inning, a ballgirl snagged a ground foul along the first base line and trotted towards the seats to hand it to a fan: there was no one there. Then too, it’s an open debate whether anyone scrambled for Adam Dunn’s home run into the right field seats — no fan was even close. If you head to see the Marlins tonight, you might want to look under your seat. When the game finished at 1 a.m this morning, there were more people in Dupont Circle than at the Marlins game. The Marlins are counting on a new stadium to solve their attendance woes, but you have to wonder whether that’s really going to work. There’s a beautiful stadium in Toronto and a good, young team — and they don’t draw a lick . . .

Over in Tampa, where the Rays were taking on the Jays, precisely 11,968 patrons showed up at “The Trop” — an embarrassing non-anomaly for a team that now ranks 23rd in MLB attendance (just behind the last place Nats). The Nationals ranked as high as 19th in attendance this year, but the Rays have never been a notch over where they are right now. Bleacher Report’s J.C. De La Torre says there’s a reason for this: 70 percent of the fans live nearly an hour from the stadium (which is true) and Tampa has the second highest jobless rate in the state. And De La Torre notes that Cincinnati, San Diego and Texas also have attendance problems. They are all first place teams with 62 percent or less in capacity this season.

No matter what the issue, the Rays’ problems are long term and not likely to be resolved anytime soon — and they will have an impact on the franchise, which will see star left fielder Carl Crawford headed out of town (wouldn’t it be nice if he came to Washington, instead of New York) come October. “It was a big letdown,” Crawford said of the sparse crowd. “We came out all fired up and you see that, it’s really depressing.” The Rays desperately need a new stadium, but are locked in a head-to-head battle over whether the team will play in St. Petersburg (where they are now, officially, located) or Tampa — which could be the site of a new stadium in the waterfront area. The battle won’t be joined until after the season, which means that a new stadium (if there is one) won’t be started for at least another year. And no one has yet figured out how a new ballpark will be funded.

(above: Jason Marquis AP Photo/Wildredo Lee; below: Carl Crawford against the Red Sox in Tampa)

Ian Desmond went 4-4 and Drew Storen made a solid debut, but the Washington Nationals fell to the Cardinals 6-2 on Monday night in St. Louis. The Nats were victimized by a tough first inning from starter Craig Stammen, who surrendered four runs against a hitting heavy Cards line-up.  Stammen pitched well the rest of the way, but Washington’s suddenly quiet bats could not get to the Redbirds. “He got settled in and pitched really good,” Riggleman said of Stammen after the game. “He really made a lot of great pitches and gave us a chance. He kept us in there. Their guy did a good job, too. Lohse did a nice job. He kind of kept us off.” Drew Storen came on in the 7th inning with a man on and one out to face former Nats infielder Felipe Lopez (who fouled out), Redbirds outfielder Ryan Ludwick (who he hit) and big bopper Matt Holliday, whom he struck out. It was an impressive first outing for the 22-year-old reliever. “He closed the inning. He did good. He threw strikes,” Ivan Rodriguez said. “He threw the three pitches out of four that he has. He threw the sinker, the breaking ball and the slider, and he did great. He did a great job.” The Nats losing streak now stands at four — with a second game against the Cardinals in St. Louis tonight.

Those Are The Details And Now For The Headlines: It looks like one of those seasons for the Bosox, who are mired in fourth place in the AL East, a full 8.5 games behind the surging Tampa Bay Rays. The sound and fury from Boston is deafening, as fans of “the Nation” have begun to take themselves apart about the deplorable state of their lovable Yazstremskis. Over The Monster is particularly puzzled, pointing out the “surprising teams” that have better records than the heroes of Fenway: the Padres, Blue Jays, Reds, Nationals and Marlins. The head scratching in the Fens is interesting to watch, particularly for a franchise whose fans suffer from attention deficit disorder. If you had claimed back in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s that the Sox would one day be viewed as one of the game’s sure-to-win franchises, your claim would have been greeted with jaw-dropping disbelief.

While Sabermetric gurus are able to point to a welter of statistics reflecting the Red Sox woes, the simple truth is that the once proud pounders who thrilled the nation (and “The Nation”), with two world championships are an aging, punchless, poor-pitching and injured group of Back Bayers who play their worst against their deadliest foes. The Red Sox lost two of three in New York one week into the season, lost four in Tampa Bay a week later and two of three against the Yankees in New York in May. That doesn’t count losses to teams they should dominate. For instance, the over-confident Sox lost three to Baltimore’s wadda-we-gonna-do Triple-A Orioles . . .  for God’s Sake . (Spontaneous demonstrations broke out on Eutaw Street and Dave Trembley was given the keys to the city.)

The problem is pitching (ain’t it always). The Red Sox rank 27th in runs allowed and 27th in team ERA. While the Red Sox can put runs on the board (they’re near the top in runs scored), they can’t keep others from scoring even more: Clay Buchholz (with four wins) is their steadiest starter, Josh Beckett is a mess and Daisuke Matsuzaka (just back from the DL) can’t get anyone out. Their roster is a doctor’s dream. Beckett has back spasms, J.D. Drew suffers from vertigo (and an inability to hit an inside slider), Mike Cameron has kidney stones (the poor sot), Jacoby Ellsbury has a chest contusion, Dice-K had a neck strain (and probably still has), Jed Lowrie has suffered from mono and (OLAS) Justin Pedroia continues to battle wrist issues. And now (following last night’s game against the hated Yankees) the entire team probably needs scream therapy.

For those who like tragedy (and walk offs), last night’s Red Sox tilt against the Yankees was fun to watch (you could switch over, just in time to see this disaster, following the Nats post game wrap-up). With a man on in the bottom of the ninth and the Sox ahead 9-7, super reliever Jonathan Papelbon collapsed. He gave up a game-tying homer to Alex Rodriguez (who hit it wicked faaaaah …), then plunked Francisco Cervelli with a fastball. With Cervelli on first, Papelbon missed his spot with Marcus Thames, who cranked Mr. P’s wheelhouse fastball into the lower left field seats. As Papelbon walked from the field, it was hard to shake the feeling that the Yankees have Boston’s number. So here’s the deal: after a season of success at Fenway the current standings in the AL East are, in fact, an accurate reflection of Red Sox reality. We can be surprised by the early season success of the Padres, Blue Jays, Reds, Nationals and Marlins. But no one should be surprised by the Red Sox. It’s not that they’re a bad team, because they’re not. For Red Sox fans, it’s  worse. They’re mediocre.