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I can hear the shrieking from down yonder on I-95 already. If they get Brian Jordan's home run call right, then the game was tied in the 9th inning on Andruw Jones' towering homer to left center, and, who knows, we might still be playing. I hear you, I hear you. We'll get to that later.

The Washington Nationals withstood Andruw Jones' 9th inning homerun and beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-2 in front of 40,000 Memorial day fans at RFK. To be sure, there will be no "The Nats have put aside their problems that have plagued them the past two weeks" headlines in any of the local papers tomorrow morning. Twice, Johnny Estrada threw a Nationals baserunner out at second. Both times, he was out by a proverbial mile. With runners on 2nd and 3rd with no one out, Jose Guillen tried to score from 3rd on a hard chopper to Rafael Furcal, who probably has the strongest arm in the major leagues. Out by the proverbial mile. Jamie Carroll missed a ground ball that should have resulted in a double play, and Vinny Castilla misplayed a chopper to 3rd with the bases loaded, allowing an unearned run to come home from 3rd base. They are still having problems scoring runs with runners on base, as another eight runners were left on today. Christian Guzman left four of those runners on himself.

The truth is, without another quality outing by Tomo Ohka, this game likely would have been another loss. Over seven innings, Ohka allowed only one unearned run and three hits, walking four and recording no strikeouts. Ohka should be Zach Day's poster child. Just like Day, Ohka was very bad to begin the season. Just like Day, Ohka found himself in manager Frank Robinson's dog house and out of the starting rotation. However, unlike Day, Ohka took his problems with the respect typical of the Japanese. He remained silent and respectful, and after producing well in a mop-up roll, was back where he was in April.

OK, back to that home run that was, then wasn't. It was. No question, that after the fourth replay, it became obvious the ball hit the lower part of the foul pole behind the fence. So that run, plus Andruw's in the 9th makes it a tie game. Right? I watched the game on TBS, and that ball that Cordero threw was right down the heart of the plate -- Andruw better have belted it out of RFK. But no one should think for one second that if this was a one run game that Cordero would have been using the middle of the plate. With a two run lead, pitchers are told not to nibble, to throw strikes and if the guy whacks it he whacks it. Big deal. That's exactly what happened. With the game 3-2, Cordero again went to work on the corners and got the next batter to fly out to end the game. So, the wrong call really didn't make much of a difference. It only changed the way that Cordero pitched to Jones.

NATS NOTES:
Brad Wilkerson continues to do what he does best: strike out and hit doubles. Wilkerson struck out two more times and added to his league leading double total. Please, someone put him fifth in the lineup. Jamie Carroll is running out of gas, really really fast. His average, which was well over .300 when that road trip from hell started, is now at 252. Jose Vidro can't come back fast enough. Nick Johnson continues to impress, getting 3 more hits, 2 of them doubles, and raising his average to .317. Marlon Byrd continues to impress, possibly ensconcing himself into the permanent starting lineup. Byrd got 2 RBI doubles and is now hitting .354. Endy Chavez, on the other hand, is hitting .179 for the Phillies. Chavez has walked twice and has an OBP of .293. I really think we traded a guy who will be out of the league in 2007 for a player who might be a starter for the next decade. Go figure. Tomorrow night, John Patterson goes against Mike Hampton.