The 1988 Orioles can relax, no challenge to their 0-22 start this year as Nats beat Philies 8-2 to advance to 1-7.

What a relief. Nice to get that first one out of the way, and in such high style, too. Home runs from Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham, Elijah Dukes, and Alberto Gonzales. Starter Shairon Martis got a nice win, too. Great performances from all of the "new" guys; Willingham, Gonzales, and Roger Bernardina, who got a nice stolen base.

This is the kind of performance that I think most of us were expecting seven games ago. Let's just hope that the team got off to a slow start and needed time to "find" itself.

Another couple of nice things: no errors, and not many stranded baserunners, only eight, I think. Much better than those games last week, such as the one where the Nats stranded 15 (or was it 16?) men on base.

All in all, a great treat for all of the Nats fans who showed up at the park this evening. Tonight's game wasn't in my package, alas.

Oh, and those new "alternate" uniforms are pretty darned snazzy. They remind me a bit of the Braves alternate home uniform introduced a season or two ago. Frankly, I like them better than the "official" white with red home uniform. The blue hat is cool, with the red, white, and blue interlocking "DC", but I'd prefer to see a red, white, and blue curly "W" instead. I vote that the club wears that uniform at home for the rest of the season.