Wrigleyville: The Nats schooled the Baby Bears yesterday, 13-5 and that makes two wins in a row. Shocked? This wouldn’t be the first time the Nats played well against the sluggies. Back in late April, the Nats took two of three from the Cubs, with John Lannan turning in a stellar performance (I was in section 128 for the game and he was masterful). He was as masterful yesterday, even if the line didn’t show it: the wind was blowing out at Wrigley and Lannan was touched for five earned runs in six-and-a-third. It could have been worse: he might have been Jason Marquis (I still can’t get past the idea that Marquis remains with the Cubs — as a sixth or even seventh starter. Why isn’t he in Texas? Or Baltimore?).

In the midst of this stinking run (the Nats are 14-23 since July 22), Nats fans can fall back on the fact that the Cubs (or anyone for that matter) would love to get a guy like Lannan and would trade more than a few prospects to put him on the mound. Which is the best reason to keep him and to look to next year — when (if the Nats have any kind of hitting at all), the young lefthander will be odds-on to be much better than .500. That is to say: a premium pitcher, the kind (with Balester) you can build a rotation around.

If Lannan continues to grow he will be a one of those unique pitchers — a lefthander with stuff who can dominate a game. He damn near does now. I wonder if Bowden knows what he has?

Victory, Defeat, Profits: Baseball and softball have been taken out of the Olympics, despite providing some of the most entertaining amateur contests in the history of the games. The U.S. won bronze in baseball and the U.S. women were upset by the Japanese in softball (a phenomenal game). But the most entertaining game was the Cuban-South Korean tilt, which provided a South Korean upset. It was a nail-biter: the Cubans had the bases loaded in the ninth with one out and grounded into a double play.

So why take both sports out of the games? IOC President Jacques Rogge (who berated Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt for celebrating his 100m and 200m wins — because, apparently, he can’t abide having black athletes celebrating), says that when major league players agree to be a part of the games the IOC will review their ban:  ”We have Federer, Nadal in tennis. We have the best cyclists. Rinaldinho is here in football. We want these guys in the game. We’re not saying its an entire Major League team, but we want the top athletes here at the Olympics.”

So much for amateur athletics. So much for the joy of victory, the agony of defeat. So much for up-close-and-personal. The Olympics are about profits — putting bodies in the seats, putting eyes in front of the television, and putting money in the bank. Exhibit A: In wake of the war in Bosnia, Olympic athletes asked the IOC to help them start a fund to rebuild Sarajevo. The IOC said ”no.” After all, the IOC isn’t a humanitarian organization. Rogge, a one-time yachtsman for Belgium, waves all of this off. “We’re a sporting organization,” he says, “not a political organization.”

The Big Train: For anyone following “Baseball Tonight’s” all-time franchise listings, the biggest surprise came on the night of July 31, when Tim Kurkjian (et.al.) announced that Kirby Puckett had outpolled Walter Johnson as the fan’s pick for all-time Twins franchise player. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise: baseball fans rarely remember two generations back — and Walter Johnson (who pitched in Washington twenty years) isn’t that well known except among the die-hards. But Kurkjian (a graduate of Walter Johnson High School) got it right: “Walter Johnson is the greatest pitcher to ever play the game of baseball.” I’ve got nothing against Puckett, but let’s review the bidding.

Johnson won 417 games, of which 100 were shutouts. What is most shocking is that “the big train” actually completed more games than he won — 531 (vs. 417). How can this possibly be? I think what this means is that even the games he lost were so close it was counter-productive to remove him. He was all the Senators had. He won over 30 games a season twice in his career, over 20 twelve times (including ten in a row) and notched over 3500 strikeouts. He led the majors in strikeouts for 60 years, until Nolan Ryan passed him. And here’s the punch line: the Kansas farmboy was a Senator. In the twenty years that Johnson pitched, the Senators finished first twice. In 1912 and 1913, Johnson accounted for roughly one-third of all the Senators’ wins. In 1911, the Senators were pathetic. They won only 64 games. But Johnson was brilliant; he won 25 of them. His ERA that year was 1.90. He once pitched 369 innings without giving up a home run.  Ty Cobb said he had the most powerful arm in baseball.

Johnson went into the Hall of Fame with Christy Mathewson in the Hall’s inaugural season. He was clearly better than Mathewson, but there are still those who argue that he was only the second best pitcher in history — behind Lefty Grove.

Nonsense.

Injuries, especially to a pitching staff, make teams scramble to plug the holes. The Red Sox, four games in back of the Rays when the evening started and licking many wounds in their starting rotation, are not immune to this fact. So it was that the wonderfully-named Charlie Zink found his way atop the hill in Fenway for his first major league start tonight against the Texas Rangers. It was a performance he won’t soon forget.

Zink toiled in the minors for six years after being signed as an undrafted minor leaguer in 2002. The 28-year old knuckleballer looked good this year going 13 - 4 with a 2.89 ERA for the Sox Triple-A affiliate in Pawtucket, RI. The kid came recommended by none other than Sox great Luis Tiant so on Monday the Red Sox, having put knuckleballer Tim Wakefiled on the DL, ignored Zink’s pedigree (did I mention he graduated from the baseball powerhouse Savannah College of Art and Design?) and plopped him in the midst of a pennant race. But how bad could it be; the kid already had his own Wiki page.

The game began in a way which, if it were written for Hollywood, would have been laughable: the Sox posted 10 runs in the first inning including not one, but two, three-run homers by David Ortiz. The Sox offensive barrage offered up a new definition of the term “breathing room” for the uninitiated Mr. Zink. Now, it was up to him.

Having been untouched in the first Zink got rattled a bit in the second, giving up two runs but — given the pad — it was forgettable. You could almost hear Ortiz in the dugout approaching Zink afterward: “Forgehedaboudit man.” In the third and fourth Zink was on a roll: three up and three down in both innings. The kid might have something here.

But, in the fifth, the knuckler betrayed him. The first seven batters he faced went: double, ground out, single, single, double, double, double and then, he was done. Texas scored eight that inning to tie the game and the improbable appearance of the no-longer a kid from Carmichael, CA had ended. His final line for the night: 4.1 innings, 11 hits, 8 runs (all earned), one walk and one strike out. His ERA was 16.62.

Overall, a poor outing — one which might very well be his last in the majors — but for a few innings Charlie Zink lived a dream; Fenway Park in a pennant race with a 10-run lead and 38,000 people cheering his name.

Gonzalez and Bonafacio: The mid-summer hiatus is over, the great travel adventure to other parts of the world has ended (with apologies for the lack of posts) and, most important of all, the trade deadline is past. But not before our beloved Anacostia boys rid themselves of useless contracts and hangers-on, and set their sights firmly on the future. It is a future that does not include Paul Lo Duca or Felipe Lopez, whose trade value was apparently so low that, even together, they could not bring a single prospect.  So be it: the Nats will not be renamed the Felipes and Paul may now peddle his talents somewhere else. Which leaves us with the question: what exactly did we get?

Alberto Gonzalez is a good glove no-hit shortstop with impressive team skills. But whether or not he can make it in the Majors is an open question, and one that will undoubtedly be soon answered when he fills in at shortstop for the injured Cristian Guzman. The fact that he once wore pinstripes and has the same name as the former AG of the current crew should not be daunting, he has a better bat and is considered a good citizen by those in the Nationals Past Time who chart such things. The Yankees traded him because they are stockpiling pitching, no matter how modest, and because they seem set at shortstop for some time to come.

The more intriguing prospect is former Diamondbacks’ Emilio Bonifacio, the 11th best prospect in the D-Backs’ organization. Only 23, Bonifacio is known for his speed but, like Gonzalez, has yet to prove he can hit major league pitching. He’ll get a chance to find out: Jim Bowden has penciled him in as the Nats lead-off hitter and starter at second next year, despite the fact that Bonifacio has only swung the bat 35 times in two seasons.

The result will be a somewhat remade infield — with few guarantees that Gonzalez or Bonifacio are any more than better-than-average Triple A players. But then, Bowden had to do something, since scouring Columbus, Harrisburg and Potomac for top-level middle infield prospects failed to find one of any quality. Plus there’s this: if you can find a player that will hit over .250 on this team (a line that neither Lo Duca or Felipe could reach), then you’ve found yourself a starter.

Is Jim In Trouble? Could be. Major league scouts think that Bowden might have gotten more for Jon Rauch and that someone, somewhere, might have given up even moderately experienced prospects for Lopez and Lo Duca. Then too, we are constantly reminded that Bowden passed on a handful of prospects for Alfonso Soriano, though his signing with the Cubs yielded some draft choices. The heat on Bowden is now palpable: while he received draftees Josh Smoker and Jordan Zimmerman for Soriano, the Nats are unlikely to continue to fill the seats of Nats Park unless Bowden can pull off something impressive in the off-season — or before. Bowden supporters point out that Bonifacio has hit .452 since reporting to Columbus and (no doubt) that’s excellent. But Nats fans would prefer he hit somewhere above the Mendoza line when he takes his place at second base (probably tonight), for the first time. You don’t need a crystal ball to figure this one out. Jim is under the gun. And if either Gonzalez or Bonifacio appear to be a bust, the fans will lose their patience, the ownership will read the attendance figures … and Jim will be gone.

Clem and the Whiz Kids: I met Casey Stengel in an elevator of Milwaukee’s Schroeder Hotel when I was eleven years old, in the summer of 1962. ”The old professor” was the then first year manager of the expansion New York Mets, but already a legend. “Say hello to Mr. Stengel,” my mother said. I recognized the name and man and he nodded to me and smiled. But as I remember it, he never asked whether I could play baseball: a conceit he allowed himself as he poked fun at a team that stands as one of the worst in baseball history.

I mention Stengel because I was reminded of him, the other night, when I channel-surfed right into the beginning of a  Twilight Zone episode from 1961. The Twilight Zone was one of my favorite shows as an eleven-year-old, in large part because it not only scared the bejesus out of me (honestly), but also because it was the last show I was allowed to stay up and watch on a Friday night filled with great shows — Route 66, Rawhide, Palladine and Gunsmoke. In that order.  

“Mr. Dingle, The Strong” features Don Rickles and Burgess Meredith, with Meredith playing “a much abused everyman” who is suddenly given tremendous physical powers by visiting unseen aliens. That’s not the point: the point is that the reason Rickles picks on Meredith (they’re in a bar) is that Meredith disagrees with Rickles over who has “better stuff” — Clem Labine or Robin Roberts. When Meredith hesitantly says “Roberts” (he knows this is not what Rickles wants to hear) he is summarily punched in the nose. It is only when he is given the gift of superhuman strength by the visiting invisible “Martians” that Rickles learns his lesson.

But who in their right mind would ever believe that Clem Labine had better stuff than Robin Roberts.

Labine was a servicable reliever who has gotten more attention than most servicable relievers deserve, in large part because he was a part of those great Brooklyn Dodger teams of the mid-1950s. Back before the save was acknowledged as an important stat, Labine led the Dodgers in saves — and the league.

But Roberts was a behemoth. He was the leader of the 1950 Phillies (the “whiz kids”) and winner of twenty games in five consecutive seasons. Towards the end of his career he pitched for the Orioles, Astros and Cubs, but those so-so years never detracted from what he did for the Phillies. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1976. And for good reason. His stats are breathtaking: 305 complete games and 45 shutouts.

Of course, I am quite sure that there are Labine partisans out there, especially among that particular baseball breed that views the Brooklyn Dodgers as the center of the baseball universe and are quick to dismiss all the rest of us as mere hobbyists.  Even so, if you love the Dodgers so much that you think that Clem Labine had better stuff than Robin Roberts you, like Luther Dingle, live your life with one foot in your mouth — “and the other in the Twilight Zone.”

Snakebit: It’s hard to feel sorry for the no-account D’Backs, particularly given their early season cheering section. One month into the season Baseball Tonight’s genetically incoherent Steve Philips dubbed the snakes “the team to beat” in the National League, which I cite as one of the reasons for their subsequent collapse. The D’Backs are well-built: great draft picks, a better-than-average pitching staff (including Brandon Webb, Micah Owings and Randy Johnson), good upper management and a stellar farm system. But it’s hard to ooh and ahh over a team that would now get into the playoffs while compiling more losses than wins. And let’s be honest. All that talk about their great young players is a little overdone: Justin Upton is hitting .242, Chris Young .236, and Alex Romero (we just can’t stop talking about Alex Romero) a breathless .243.

Then there’s the bevy of other players — dubbed “the D’Backs wealth of great young talent”: shortstop Stephen Drew (.256) and third baseman Mark Reynolds, who is hitting an anemic .255. Orlando Hudson is the only guy who has really met the team’s expectations; he’s hitting .302. Of course, the D’Backs have been beset by injuries, but that kind of whining doesn’t go down well in Anacostia. (Stop your whining and learn to hit a curve.) It would be great to sweep these guys, but that’s going to be tough, especially when you note that our beloved Nats have to come onto the field against, arguably, the best pitcher in baseball.

Rays and Reds: One of the salutory things about being a father is that, from time to time, you get to schlepp your children’s . . . stuff . . . around the country when they decide to move. So it was that I was able to visit Boston at the same time the Bosox visited Tampa Bay. While that eliminated any chance I had to visit Fenway, it yielded a late night foray to a Framingham bar, where a television larger than I have ever seen showed the Bosox taking on the Tampa Bay Rays in a Tuesday tilt at Tropicana. And it gave me a chance to rub shoulders with a group of baseball-savvy Bosox fans who, when not drinking, were yelling epithets at Terry Francona and Jason Varitek.

The Tuesday night Rays-Sox contest was one of the best television games I had seen in some time and convincing evidence that — unless the rest of the AL comes armed and ready – they are likely to get schooled by the rejuvenated Rays. The Rays swept the Sox in three (much as they had earlier swept the Cubs), and now sit atop the AL East. The world is turned upside down. “They’re good,” one Sox fan told me, “they’re the next Big Red Machine.” Well, probably not: but their bullpen is solid and with Evan Longoria and a rehabbed Carlos Pena at first (he had 46 home runs last year), the Rays are among the best teams in the game. But the key to their success (of course) is pitching.

On the night I watched, Matt Garza – who came over from Minnesota — shut down the Bosox for seven innings, before giving way to J.P. Howell and Grant Balfour. Howell looked unhittable, and when he set down Varitek the Bosox catcher looked absolutely baffled. It reminded me of the look Joe Morgan gave to Catfish Hunter during the second game of the 1972 World Series. Morgan could never solve Hunter, and the Reds (at the beginning of the Big Red Machine era) hit a combined .209 against the ”Swingin’ A’s.”

“The Big Blue Machine” is, in fact, nothing like the 1972 Reds. But it’s a lot like the “Swingin’ A’s,” who were grounded by strong pitching and punch-and-judy hitters. Hunter, Odom, Holtzman, Fingers and Blue stifled the Reds “machine” of Bench, Rose, Concepcion, Morgan, Geronimo, and Foster — exhibit A of how good pitching always beats good hitting. So it was in the Rays-Bosox series: as Kazmir, Garza, Shields, Wheeler, Howell and Percival held the Sawx to ten earned runs in three games. ”They’re the next big Red Machine,” a Red Sox fan told me, shaking his head after Grant Balfour shut down the B’s in game two. I disagree: if anything, the Tampa Bay Rays of 2008 are more like the “Swingin’ A’s.”

Speaking of which: Our beloved Nats are in Cincinnati for a four game set at the Great American Ballpark — where, after just one game and one inning, Junior has already hit number 304.

The Reds are Major League Baseball’s oldest franchise, and one of its most storied. But, since last winning a world series (in 1990), the “Redlegs” have fallen on hard times and are now rebuilding. The Dusty Baker 9 now features a great aging star, some sometime hitters, and a bevy of young throwers — all of whom (if Dusty’s legacy is an indication), will soon be on their way to the Mayo Clinic, for Tommy John surgery. These are not your daddy’s Reds: Brandon Phillips is their best ballplayer, Jay Bruce is one of their “emerging 8’s,” and Cueto and Volquez may well anchor a great pitching staff in the future. But the future seems a long ways away for those who decide to take in a game at the Great American Ballpark.

The New Rule: Taking advantage of a new Major League rule, the Washington Nationals are considering trading 1st Baseman Nick Johnson for “a player to be named much, much later.” While the Nats front office would not name the player, it is thought to be young Bobby Bailey, a T-baller with the Overland Park, Kansas T-ball league. Bailey is believed to be a prized prospect in the Kansas City Royals scouting system.”He’s an integral part of our decades-long effort to rebuild our team,” a Royals’ scout noted proudly. While only six years old, Bailey is viewed by the Nats as a potential future player whose upside is that “while we don’t know whether he can run, hit or catch, he never gets injured.” As one Nats insider told River-Dogz: “This kid is just a stud, he just rolls with the punches.”

Okay … well, heartless as this may seem, the truth of the situation is even more heartless. In many ways, Johnson was more valuable to the Nats than Ryan Zimmerman; he was a silent clubhouse presence who led by example. His second deck home run earlier this year was a sign of things to come — a prodigious shot. He’s gone for the remainder, after a wrist failed to heal. While “Meat Tray“ is a very fine . . .  yes, indeed a very fine hitter (and leader too), you can see why other teams pursue Johnson, while passing on his replacement. The front office quietly has it that Nick is snakebit. Maybe. But for pursuing scouts, anxious to land a leader and trade some prospects, Johnson appears fragile. There’s a world of difference.

This is a disaster. 

On another note: We mourn the passing of Ryan Langerhans to Triple A Columbus, where he will attempt to break out of his career-long slump. We have heard from sportswriters of the BBWA that the motion to change the phrase “Mendoza Line” to Langerhans Line has been tabled, pending the outcome of Pete Orr’s tenure as Langerhans’ replacement in the Nats’ lineup. We wish Ryan well. Everyone struggles in baseball, but he has struggled more than most.

The Grey Eagle: You can make the argument (you can make it, but you would lose) that Tris Speaker was the greatest center fielder of all time. That would place him ahead of Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, of course, and that’s not possible. But he’s certainly in the top five and perhaps in the top three. There’s a reason for that — and it had nothing to do with his deep friendship with that world-class chump, Ty Cobb. Speaker was the first in a long-line of unappreciated Red Sox: brilliant players who were eventually cast away for money or bums because the owner thought they were too expensive, washed up …  or just because.

The list includes Ruth, Fisk and Clemens. But Speaker was the first to go — and the worst decision in Red Sox history (yes, worse than Ruth because in Speaker at least they knew, yes the keepers of the asylum just knew), and Boston fans talked about it for years afterwards. Speaker went to Cleveland, of all places (in 1916), and for a few bucks and some prospects. That’ll show him!

So if Cincinnati is a place where pitchers go to die, then Boston is a place where great players go to get traded. Still.

Anyway. I was reading about Speaker the other day (there’s this) and I was just stunned by his statistics. Two in particular. The retro-sheets show that Speaker played so shallow in center field that he sometimes covered second during double plays: 6-8-3! He holds the record for double plays by an outfielder (139). Of course this was the dead ball era, but still. Then there’s this: in over 10,000 at bats he struck out 220 times. 

Down On Half Street: Elijah Dukes looks like a sorry outfielder — he has not mastered the depth of right field in Nationals Park — but he can hit the ball. Against the Rangers at Nationals Park on Friday night he went 5 for 6 and raised his average to .270. We all watched closely as Manny congratulated him after the game. Dukes even parked one in Center Field. He’s starting to look like the player the Nats thought he might be when they got him from Tampa Bay . . . Enough about this worrying whether the Nats are going to draw. There were 30,000-plus to see the Nats in a 14 inning tussle with the Rangers last night. And the crowd is hardly filled with neophytes. There is a surly quality to the fans along the right field line (where I sit), particularly on ground balls hit to Felipe Lopez . . . camera shots of people streaming in from Half Street now seem to have become a tradition . . . Josh Hamilton struck out three times in the Nats 4-3 win. He looked awful. He should have never agreed to that Sports Illustrated profile.

The Killer: I thought a lot about the Minnesota Twins and all the might-have-beens had they hung around Washington instead of moving to the twin cities. One thing: I have heard that Harmon Killebrew is the model for the MLB logo and the story makes sense  . . .

but I have found no confirmation of it. And the closest I could find of something that looks like a Killebrew stance that might be used for a logo is this:

which is itchy close … but only close. The Twins, of course, started out here before Calvin Griffith moved them after the 1960 season. They went to capture a pennant in ‘65 with a team that should have been in Washington. Killebrew was the center of that team. In ‘65 he hit 25 home runs with 75 RBIs — an off-year in which he was injured much of the time. Tony Oliva, in only his second full year, hit .321 and led the league in hitting.  But it was Killebrew who was the heart of those Twins’ teams: when he retired he had hit 573 home runs, had been in the top ten in the AL in OBP in nine years (and in the top ten in slugging in ten), and played on eleven all star teams. The Twins did well in Minnesota, but only just: “He kept us in business,” Calvin Griffith said of Killebrew.

The early ’60s were very good years for the Twins, with one World Series title, but they were not great years. The great years were the late ’80s and early ’90s. The Twins won the series in ‘87 and again in ‘91, behind the hitting of Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti and Kirby Puckett – two of whom are in the Hall of Fame — and the pitching of Bert Blyleven and

Then there’s this:

twer it so …

The Nation: Me droog Tom (you remember Tom) and I spent Thursday night talking about baseball, and about halfway through our discussion he asked me whether it was true that the Red Sox are now actually hated — after spending years as the darlings of American fandom. It didn’t use to be that way, he noted. I told him that it was true. “You bet they’re hated,” I said, “especially Varitek.” But over the last two days I’ve changed my mind: I don’t think they’re hated, I think they’re getting too much attention. It’s not their fault.

Here’s what I mean. On any given night you can tune into Baseball Tonight and hear Peter Gammons whinge on and on about the trials and tribulations of Dustin Pedroia. Here’s Dustin hitting for the cycle, here’s Dustin making a terrific play, here’s Dustin meeting with the Queen. Why, I bet that Dustin can even sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” There’s no question that Pedroia was a terrific find for the Bosox (and I love Gammons, frankly), but Pedroia’s not a great player, he’s not even close to a great player. Then too, the guy I saw last night, Ian Kinsler, is much better — but gets half the attention.

By-the-bye, the young lady behind me noticed that Kinsler was all over the field, ranging to his left and right to scoop up ground balls and every time he did she would yell “get ‘em gadget.” And then she would giggle. Get it? Get em gadget?

Kinsler’s hitting .306 with ten home runs and 45 RBIs: a clip that should net him 120 RBIs and close to 25 home runs. Pedroia’s hitting .277 with six home runs and 32 RBIs. Kinsler has better range at second, better speed, a better glove. But Pedroia leads the All Star balloting (Kinsler is second) by some 200,000-plus votes. Why? Because Pedroia plays in Boston, that’s why.

I’m not whining mind you (well, okay, I’m whining just a bit) — I’m just building a case for claiming that the Red Sox are not hated. They’re over-exposed. And that has nothing to do with the Red Sox. It has to do with the way that the baseball media cover them. The same is true of the Cubs, by the way. And, well, you know … I love the Cubs. And the Nats, of course. But honest-go-God, I know that ESPN has to worry about ratings, but we’ve got the Cubs and Yanks and Bosox covered — let’s see the Rangers and Pirates and, yes, even the Royals. It shouldn’t be that I have to go to a Nats game to be expose to the likes of an Ian Kinsler.

The Cleveland Naps: When I was a kid I was always delving into the history of baseball, honing my skills at talking about guys like Nap Lajoie and Kid Nichols. History is what I had instead of an ability to hit a curveball. But I only learned recently that the current Cleveland Indians were once named the Cleveland Naps in his honor (his name, by the way, is French Canadian — and is pronounced La-jway). That’s how good he was.

One thing’s for sure: they’re not going to be renaming the Nats the Felipe’s anytime soon.

Put Up Your Dukes: Our friends at Federal Baseball weigh in on the Elijah Dukes-Manny Acta dust-up on Tuesday night, even going so far as to show a clip of Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon agreeing that now is the time for Dukes to go. What? Already? Listen, the Boston Red Sox are having fistfights in their dugouts for God’s sake and the World Champion Yanks of Billy Martin’s years couldn’t stand each other. So who the hell cares? Maybe a little dust-up will do these guys some good.

MLB.com, meanwhile, puts all of this down to “dugout miscommunication.” Of course, that explains everything — and nothing. Every baseball tiff (and every war, come to think of it), is about miscommunication. Still, there’s a story here somewhere, so here’s the scoop so far. Apparently (although this is just one version of the story), Dukes thought that Acta had not properly congratulated him on his double against the Pirates in the top of the ninth (followed by the Lastings Milledge home run). He was miffed. Others, unreported others, believed that Acta was angry with Dukes for overly celebrating after Milledge and Dukes had crossed home plate. This would not be the first time — or so the story goes — and Acta lost his temper, confronted Dukes in the dugout and read him out.

Dukes does not take these things lightly, of course, so after the game, he refused to high-five Acta during the traditional on-the-mound handshake. Acta gave a sly and cynical smile to this and kept on walking, but this was an act that was not bound to please. After the game there was a closed-door meeting between Dukes, Acta and GM Jim Bowden to clear that air. We can only imagine.

So what happened? The Washington Post blog on the Nationals had this exchange between Acta and reporters:

Q: Can you expand at all on what happened in the dugout yesterday?

MA: No, that’s yesterday’s news, and I don’t read yesterday’s paper. It’s over with. What happens in Pittsburgh stays in Pittsburgh. We talked it out after the game, and we’re cool, we’re fine.

Q: So does the decision to have Elijah back in the lineup emphasize what you’re talking about - that it’s over?

A: That had nothing to do. I’m never going to do something against my club because of whatever happens on the field. That had nothing to do whatever happened yesterday. He’s our right fielder.

So there you have it. Now you know as much as we do. Which is exactly nothing.

Complete Games: I watched the Nats lose to the Bucs tonight in Pittsburgh, then switched over to watch Ryan Dempster pitch the Cubs’ first complete game of the season, against the Braves. The Nats have not had one yet, but have come close. I thought that John Lannan had pitched one, but stats don’t lie — he went 7.1 against the O’s in a gem, while the up-and-down Jason Bergman went a full 8 against the Diamondbacks.

I only mention this because the other night I was checking some stats on the Baseball Reference and was curious about Sandy Koufax’s pitching record. I was always confused about the way sportwriter’s viewed Koufax. There was no question that he was a dominant pitcher, but he was not dominant over an extended period of time — like, say, Walter Johnson (21 years, 417 wins), or Christy Mathewson (17 years, 373 wins) or even Bob Gibson (17 years, 251 wins). Koufax, in comparison, pitched for only eleven years and had just 165 wins.

But here’s the difference. For a short time in those eleven years, Koufax absolutely defined pitching. The Cubs got their first complete game tonight. In 1965, Koufax threw  27 complete games. He did it again the next year, in 1966. Twenty-seven complete games. Koufax was brilliant but, in my opinion, Bob Gibson was better.

In 1968, when Gibson went 22-9 for the Cardinals, he pitched 28 complete games. The other great pitcher on the staff was Nelson Briles. The number three starter was Steve Carlton, who would later be traded to the Phillies for Rick Wise. Gibson’s ERA in 1968 was 1.12. He threw 304 innings, and gave up 62 walks. He allowed 38 earned runs during the entire season. In his World Series career, Gibson won seven games and lost two. Backed by Gibson’s pitching, the Cards won the Series in ‘64 and again in ‘67.

But here’s the thing that gets me, and that no stats book will show. In 1968, Gibson’s manager never made a visit to the mound to talk to Gibson — or to bring in a reliever. The pitching coach did, but never to take him out.

This baseball card just sold for $28,000:

Pssst! Don’t tell anyone, but I want it. I would be willing to trade my wife for it — whaddaya think? Here she is:

I went to the Nats game on Tuesday. They were sloppy, uninterested, forgettable and disappointing. Felipe Lopez failed to cover second and Ryan Langerhans (he’s hitting .188), let a ball slide past him in left. The scorer called it an error and later changed it to a double. It was an error. I was embarrassed for them — I was embarrassed for Manny. Don Sutton is forever praising Manny for his patience, but I think it’s about time he started throwing something around the clubhouse. I understand they’re injured, I understand they’re building, but there’s no excuse for looking like they’ve arrived not ready to play. The crowd around me was sullen, critical, disgusted. In my book, they had every right. The Nats have the lowest batting average in the Majors — it’s time for someone to get upset about it.

The Emerging 8s

It struck me the other night that we’re seeing the blossoming of a new era of great centerfielders — triple-crown contender Josh Hamilton in Texas, rookie phenom Jay Bruce in Cincinnati, heavy-hitting Chris Young in Arizona, the Wahoo’s Grady Sizemore (he’s a veteran, but only 26), and the under-the-radar Adam Jones.

Jones is going to be a terrific player. I saw him clear the bases against the Bosox the other night — and it was a sight. He was the big name in the trade for Eric Bedard, and I wondered at the time whether the O’s got enough, but have since decided they got more than enough. Once Jones starts hitting for average (and he will), the Orioles will put him in the fourth spot for the next fifteen years and just watch him — unless Angelos interferes and does something stupid. Jones will have competition from this guy:

who just gets better and better and better. They talk about his base stealing and his speed (and it’s damned good, no doubt), but it’s his brain and not his legs that need to kick in. I saw him try to steal third twice this year, once for the third out. He hasn’t tried it since, and has been steady at the plate. With Jones in Baltimore and Milledge here … well, it will make the I-95 worth seeing.

The difference between winning and losing to Milwaukee on Monday afternoon (the Nats lost 4-3 in 11 innings) was the inordinate number of strike outs chalked up by the Brewer’s pitching staff. Fifteen times the Nats batters trudged back to the dugout after having whiffed. With a total of 41 at-bats the entire day, the home town team k’d more than a third of the time. Not a stat to be proud of to be sure and one that shows how little help the pitching staff received on the day. Milwaukee wasn’t much better — 12 stike outs in 39 at-bats — but they won.

Both the guys swinging the bat well and those who aren’t all contributed to the high K total today. Harris, Boone, Dukes, Flores, Bergman and Langerhans all had two apiece. And in a key two-inning stretch with the momentum going the Nats way after they tied the score in the bottom of the eighth, Milwaukee reliever Carlos Villanueva recorded five strike outs in his two innings of work. You can’t do much with that.

Another problem with Washington was it’s seeming inability to work the count. For instance, in his two innings of work Viallanueva only threw 27 pitches - 19 for strikes. Thirteen pitches per inning may seem high, but it’s not when you consider the five strike outs. I should also mention that Villanueva had a 6.30 ERA going into today’s game. The Nats made him look like he was a contender for the Cy Young. Milwaukee starter Ben Sheets had an equally easy day. Eighty-six pitches (61 for strikes!) over six innings including six strike outs. I wish I’d counted how many first-pitch swings the Nats had throughout the day. Whatever it was it was too many.

The theme for the day should have been: Take A Pitch!

Diamond Nuggets

Ah, the joys of the conession stand at Nationals Park continue. In the top the of the second inning today I had to get a large-sized drink for my pint-sized daughter because the medium-sized cups didn’t have any lids. Plenty of medium-sized cups. Just no medium-sized lids. Wouldn’t you think you’d order one with the other? How does that happen?

At least a few times at the park today it was announced on the video screen that during the game on June 4 against St. Louis, the Nats will do a cross-promotion to advertise the Discovery Channel’s newest offering, the PlanetGreen channel. A well-placed source tells me the first pitch will feature a green ball and bat. Presumably the team, which has made quite an effort to make the ballpark “green” sees this as a great way to further its reputation in that area. But a green ball and bat?! Maybe I misunderstood and it’ll be a ceremonial first pitch. Stay tuned.