Since I was a young man, I wished that the Washington baseball team could be in first, just for a while. I wanted to be able to pick up the Washington Post just once and see "Washington" ahead of the rest of the teams in the division. My brother giggled when I told him that it might happen, saying, "Washington will be in first place when hell freezes over." Well, the team name is different, but the idea is the same. With the Braves losing to the Pirates, and the Nationals win over the Marlins, the Washington Nationals are something that no other Washington team has been this late in the season: a first place team. And it really shouldn't have even happened.

Today was a throw-a-way game. After compiling a 5-1 record against the Braves and Marlins during the homestand, the chances of sweeping the Marlins was almost zero. A.J. Burnett was pitching for the Marlins, and the Nats would be without their starting corner outfielders, Brad Wilkerson and Jose Guillen. Nah. Let's just call this game in and be happy with a 5-2 record for the homestand thus far.

And they did. For awhile at least.

It was 2-0 going into the bottom of the 7th before the Nats fanagled 3 runs to take the lead 3-2. Lenny Harris quickly changed that in the 8th with one of his pinch-hit specialties to tie the game. It should have been worse, with a runner of third and less than two outs, but outstanding reflief pitching ended the threat.

Ryan Church. Man, Ryan Church. A smooth swing, against a left hander no less, sent the ball arching over the right field wall for a no-question 3 run home run that gave the Nationals the lead, and ultimately the win, 6-3. The team didn't realize that this wasn't a game they should have lost. They didn't realize that by playing 4 1/2 regulars, they didn't have a chance against fireballer A.J. Burnett. They should have been thinking about Marlon Byrd's frenzied reaction and Tomo Ohka's diss, but they weren't They looked up into the stands, and saw 40,000 frenzied Nats fans who believed in them, and they fought back to win the game, not once but twice.

John Patterson reasserted himself as one of the teams top 2 starters, though he didn't get the win. Ryan Church reasserted himself as one of the NL's shining rookies of the 2005 campaign. Nick Johnson didn't get a hit [unusual] but got on base with a walk [usual]. Christian Guzman forgot about his hitting struggles and made one of the finest defensive plays I have ever seen at shortstop in all my years [and I have had many years]. Tony Blanco continued his clutch hitting with a double that drove in a key Nationals run.

Most pundits say this hot streak won't last, that very soon, they'll take their place as expected in the cellar of the NL East, and leave first place to the "big boys." Uh huh. Right now, we ARE the big boys, and it's up to the rest of the division to push us out. If we're doing this well with 11 of our players on the DL, how might we play when they all return? And they will return.

But no matter what happens, I'm stunned. I filled this post with letters and apostrophes and commas and such, but in reality, I'm just plain and simply speechless. Wow.