Nice Call

For some reason, Lou Piniella decided it was a good idea to intentionally walk the .249 Ryan Zimmerman, and load the bases to get to the All-Star, .337 hitting Dmitri Young.

Now, I’m no manager of any sort but to me, something about that seems a little wonky and Mr. Young must have been licking his chops at the situation in front of him. He proceeded to hit the game-winning Grand Slam off Rich Hill, as the Nationals pitching staff shut down the Cubs for the rest of the day in a 6-0 victory for Washington.

Afterwards, Piniella defended the move, but come on, seriously, Young has easily been the best player on the Nationals all year and today was no different for Manny Acta’s club. Nice victory for the cellar-dwelling club.

And on a bit of a side note, after starting the season as the Cubs most proficient and reliabel starter, Rich Hill has really hit a wall over the past four starts. Hill has allowed 17 runs on 26 hits in a grand total of 17.2 innings over his last four starts. Um, that's not very good. Hill had a 2.81 ERA before this stretch and has since seen it rise to 3.81 after Wednesday's debacle against the Nationals. Hill has posted an 8.66 ERA over his last four starts, making him a very unattractive option for you fantasy geeks.

You know, just a little heads up for you.

Bergmann's return

Not that there's anything terribly exciting to expect with the return of Jason Bergmann, but for Nationals fans and Manny Acta, its a bright light in a dark year.

Bergmann has been great this year and in his return on Monday night he was solid again as he pitched four innings and allowed only one run but still took the loss. Brian McCann accounted for all four Atlanta runs, including a 3 run homer, as the Braves took the first game of the series 4-1.

The three run homer came off Billy Traber after Bergmann had left, which put the Braves ahead for good. Traber has been decent this year for Washington but McCann had a quality game, busting out of an 0 for 14 slump he'd been in.

While Bergmann did well for the Nats, it was Tim Hudson who got the win for the Braves, going 7 strong and striking out 9, in a dominant performance. Hudson has been decent all year but has been lacking consistency over the past month with some very erratic performances mixed in with his solid outing like Monday's night effort.

Now, if the Nats can get Shawn Hill back in the fold and Micah Bowie continues his strong pitching as of late, they might actually be able to finish with 80 wins, which would be a step in the right direction for this moribund franchise.