Santana's "black magic" pitching spells trouble for Nats as rally falls short, lose to Mets 4-3, fall to 3-12

For the most part, I think that the Nats did pretty well last night against Mets ace Johann Santana. Against a guy like that, I think that you just have to battle as best you can and hope that he, or his teammates, makes a mistake. The guy is a workhorse. He threw 104 pitches in six innings, 75% of them for strikes, striking out 10, walking one, and only allowing Nick Johnson's home run (his first this year) to spoil his shutout. So what do you do with a pitcher like Santana? Outlast him. Hang in there and try to get to the bullpen, and that's what the Nationals did. Down 3-1, Jésus Flores hit a 2-run homer, his first of the season, to cut their deficit to 4-3 and, with no men out, the Nats had a few more chances to tie thinngs up, but it wasn't to be.

I feel badly for Nats starter Scott Olsen. He had a quality start, but didn't get enough help on defense.

Ah, well. If they're not going to win, at least don't embarass yourselves or your fans. Those close losses stink, but they stink less than the dominating blowouts. When the score goes the other way, that's pretty sweet.

At least the Nats had a nice, new, clean visitor's locker room to work out of, right?

Let's see what Daniel Cabrera can do today.