The Washington Nationals won last night, and the lost as well. They beat the then first place Florida Marlins 7-3, winning 5 out of their last 6 against the two first place clubs in the NL East division. They lost Marlon Byrd for the rest of the game, and probably at some point, another 5-10 games. I guess we have too many players on the DL, so we have to start filling the suspended list.

It was a strange game from the first pitch. Tomo Ohka obviously didn't have his "stuff" Saturday night, and struggled to get outs all night long. He gave up an unearned run in the 1st, but Vinny Castilla quickly changed the feel of the game with a bases clearing double in the bottom half of the first. Ohka gave up a run in the 2nd on a Juan Pierre double and allowed a game tying homer by Juan Encarnacion in the 3rd. The Nats clawed back with a run in the 5th when Jamie Carroll scored on a Nick Johnson single. The seventh saw a repeat, as Johnson again singled hom Jamie Carroll to give the Nationals a 5-3 lead. The Nats put the game out of the reach in the 8th on a Christian Guzman single and a Tony Blanco double. Final score: 7-3 Nats.

A word on Marlon Byrd. Replays showed that he in fact did strike out, so I'm no sure why he was so upset. That said, after being ejected from the game, he made a bee-line towards hat umpire, and Joe Brinkman stepped in to in his words "corral" him and got knocked down pretty hard. If in fact Brinkman instigated the contact, MLB officials should go easy on Byrd. With our luck, however, he'll be suspended for a month.

Ryan Church is continuing to show why he was the top prospect in the Expos minor league system last year. Ryan went 3-4 to raise his average to .319. If Byrd will as expected be suspended for a few games, Church will finally get a chance to hit left handers on a regular basis. Nick Johnson got two more hits to up his average to an amazing .338. Jamie Carroll & Cristian Guzman also got 2 hits a piece as they seem to be pulling out of their slumps as well.

I'm not as concerned with Tomo Ohka having a mediocre game as I am his pulling a "Zach Day" when Frank Robinson came to the mound to relive him. He turned his back on his manager, and held tightly on to the ball, almost refusing to give it up. Because Frank pulled an ineffective Ohka early, and brought in pitchers who were effective, the Nats were able to beat the Marlins. A team as thin as the Nationals can't wait for their starting pitchers to find their groove sometime later in the game. I support manager Robinson's action.

Props to Sunny Kim. Finally getting a chance since returning to the big leagues from New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, Kim pitched 3.1 innings, allowing no runs on 3 hits, striking out 4. Kim has a stable major league career, and [hopefully] will solidify the Nats long relief bullpen.

The Nationals are now ahead of the Marlins in the standings, a half game behind the Braves for first place in the NL East. How? They are 4th out of 5 teams in the division in batting, last in runs scored, last in home runs, 4th in on base percentage, and last in slugging percent. They are also last in stolen bases. Maybe they are doing it with pitching? They are 4th out of 5 in team ERA. They are winning by shear desire. They are winning by a single run most of the time, and often, the wins come by luck or bad play by the opposition. Yet they continue to win, and I'll take that.

These numbers suggest that the Nationals will eventually fade to the basement sometime in late July. You can't be the worst offensive and nearly the worst pitching team in a division and continue to win.

Who knows. Maybe you can. Get our 11 players off of the DL and lets see what these boys can do as a team. Either way, the ride so far has been great. No one can take that away from the team, or the fans.