BallWonk's crack IT staff is upgrading the publishing system this weekend. While the upgrade is underway, stuff on Ball-Wonk.com may not work properly. Like comments. The comments section is completely FUBAR thanks to the system upgrade....

P.T. Bowden acquires Wily Mo Pena from Red Sox for a player to be named later. Former Commie Wily Mo may or may not be a great addition to the team at a very low price. But for the love of Pete, can someone please tell Bowden that it's high time he gets over the fact he's not with Cincinnati anymore?...

This is why BallWonk will miss RFK Canyon National Monument when the Forest Service closes it down in October. In a poll of 250+ big-league players, the Bobby was rated the third-toughest park to hit in in the big leagues. Tougher than the Coliseum in Oakland or Safeco in Seattle. With all those young pitchers we're relying on to build the foundation of future championships, here's hoping the new ballpark plays a lot more like RFK Canyon than like the HO-scale Citizens Bank Park in Philly or the hobbit-sized Great American Ballpark in Cincy -- even with the 10-foot-closer wall...

Philadelphia at Washington. Phailers 4, Nationals 2 Blah blah blah excellent Nationals pitching blah blah blah no run support blah blah blah. Mumbo jumbo, in the wild-card race with even average batting, mumbo jumbo mumbo jumbo. Yadda yadda fifth consecutive game the Nats should have won yadda yadda instead they're 2-3 over that span yadda yadda, yadda yadda. Sigh. The big news on the day was not that the Nationals took another easy win handed to them on a red-and-gold platter by the pitching staff and flushed it down the clubhouse toilet. Been there, done that. No, the big...

Philadelphia at Washington. Nationals 4, Phailers 2. Item! The Nationals signed the McGeary kid, who will now become a professional baseball player in the Nationals organization instead of going to college. Yay victory of sports over education! All of a sudden, the amount of probable quality pitching in the Nationals system is starting to look a little scary. There are now enough plausible two- or three-spot lefty starters in the system that we could be trading arms for bats in the next couple of years. And just like that, BallWonk's faith in The Plan is a lot stronger. In other...

His second decisive home run in three games, and both times Church kind of looked disappointed. All the longballs are putting him off pace to hit 50 doubles this year. "Aw, jimminy," you could almost hear him thinking, "I hit that one too hard. That's gonna be four. Heckity darn." The pitching has remained consistently strong. But the Nats offense has of late been making mooks like Kyle Lohse look like Brandon Webb. So when Ryan Church steps up to make himself the little engine that slugged game-transforming home runs in consecutive wins, he chugs back down the hill...

Philadelphia at Washington. Phailers 3, Nationals 2. Sure, Z-Man had all the time in the world on that grounder in the eighth. But who expected that once he gloved the ball, he would stop, unpack a camp desk and folding chair, carefully address an envelope, stamp it, put the ball in the envelope, and then send it by airmail to first base? And it turns out that airmailing the ball three feet over Bobby Fick's head is about two feet too high to make a play at first. Then the Big Fella pitched just well enough to escape unscathed from...

Washington at Arizona.Snakes 11, Nationals 4.Snakes 1, Nationals 0.Nationals 7, Snakes 6. Press, Baltimore supporters, and Phillies fans will try to portray recent results in the desert as defeat for the Nationals. Opponents will say we lost two of three, got schooled by former ace starter, dropped a game away from .500 and lost a game on Florida. These are the points to get out today in interviews and appearances. Call-in to talk radio also in order. • Nationals outplayed NL-leading Arizona in two of three games. Nats played better game on Saturday, came up unlucky in one of the...

Just a week ago, when young Lannan was mastering the Barroid in San Francisco, Frank Robinson stopped by the press box to have a chat with Bob and Don. Frank was in town representing Emperor Selig as one of his dark minions, you see. So Bob says to Frank, he says, "Watching the Nats this year, has anyone really surprised you?" And Frank goes, yeah, Dmitri Young really turned his career around blah blah blah. Pick your cliche things to say about the Nats, Dmitri, the starters, and the bullpen; Frank said it all. One game at a time...

When he got one last chance to kick sand in Barry Bonds's face, he took it. Enablers fans on their feet to watch their doped up cheater hero hit number 758? "Here, have one outside for a sad little popup with the game on the line," the Big Fella said, "And oh by the way that's the series we just tied with you." That moment alone was worth Majority Leader honors. But then Rauch pulled the old pump-to-third-throw-to-first move and it worked. That never works. And not "never works" in metaphorical, teenager terms meaning "hasn't worked for at least...

In which BallWonk pays tribute to the great Giants slugger who passed Hank Aaron with his 756th career home run, playing in that great city on the bay.

Back in the lineup, and back into contention for season honors with a home run that almost reached that one young Nationals fan before the middle-aged San Francisco jerk threw it back (hey, buddy, Wrigley Field called: it wants its gag back) and go-ahead double and the steal of third and the walk, it's Felipe. Oh, and also for going over to cheer up Bacsik when the Enablers stopped the game for like a quarter of an hour to celebrate Barry Bonds finally getting to second place on the all-time home run list. It's little things like that to...

Washington at San Francisco. 11 Innings. Enablers 3, Nationals 2. Bochy writes in his journal during Barry Bonds's first at-bat. Publisher's Note: In preparation for possible book deal about Barry Bonds's home run chase -- working title "Managing 756" -- Giants skipper Bruce Bochy is keeping a diary of Bonds's performance. The following are excerpts from Bochy's journal entry for Monday's game. Top 1st - Bases loaded, no outs. That Young fellow hits long fly to left. Easy out, but Barry struggles to get to warning track in time. Makes play look v. hard. Showboating or just too old to...

BallWonk never stops counting the ballots for Majority Leader. This season's patchwork rotation, in which more than 29,000 pitchers have been "surged" to the mound in just 111 games, has posed a particular challenge to the balloting process. This has posed an even greater challenge to the Nationals, and that despite fielding a cohort of starting pitchers that the Kansas City Royals wouldn't wish on the Yankees, the pitching has been a particular strength this season. Even when the Nats lose, they tend to lose close. So BallWonk is awarding all delegates earned by starting pitchers to Nationals pitching...

So first there was taking BallWonk's German houseguest to his first major-league ballgame on Tuesday. Bit of a bust at first actually; never have four innings of scoreless baseball seemed to drag on so. But then when the scoring began, time started to fly, and for the rest of the game German houseguest was on the edge of his seat. Literally. Heck of a way to start the baseball week. That led to a commanding sweep of the Commies, of course, so here is the obligatory broom: Then, on Friday night, the Nationals finally broke out the classic 1935-style Grays...