1-1 in New York City

Immediately after Chad Cordero walked Jose Reyes to load the bases in the bottom of the 9th inning, I said to myself, "Now we've got them right where we want them." When Paul Lo Duca hit a sharp liner to Guillen for the final out to take the game into extra innings, I didn't feel lucky-- that's just Chad Cordero's special brand of relief.

The Nats lost the first game of the season: half charity with their baserunning and defense, and half theft by the home plate umpire. They sent a bearded John Patterson to the mound in the second game. Something about John Patterson in a beard concerns me, and when the Nationals fell behind 4-0 even though he pitched fairly well, I was concerned that the season was taking shape before my eyes. Aggressive, botched play to lose the close ones, and overmatched in the rest of them. My fear is that the Nats lost talent before Opening Day while other clubs like the Mets got better. The Mets lineup seems pretty deep, contrasted against the weakest lineup in the Majors from last year, and the Nats have only the addition of a disgruntled slugger from the American League (the guilty party on defense on Opening Day on a ball into the corner in left) and taking into account the loss of a pretty good center fielder (Wilkerson) and our second best starter (Loaiza).

It occurred to me that maybe the Mets will suffer in their pitching. I liked our game 2 matchup, with Patterson against rookie Brian Bannister. But when it was 4-0, and Bannister didn't look scary, just fortunate to be facing the Nats, I was wondering if these Nationals don't resemble the 71-91 Expos more than the club that led their division at the All Star break last year.

But then the game fell into place in the same way so many games went to the Nats in 2005, with the bullpen holding the enemy while the offense eventually produced the key hits. Johnson hit a three run home run off a tiring Bannister in the 6th, and cool as a cucumber rookie Ryan Zimmerman (he of the .397 batting average in 58 at bats last year) smashed a line shot off Billy Wagner to tie the game leading off the 9th. Zimmerman took three balls to start his at bat, then took a strike, then fouled a pitch to see the count go 3-2. Odds are, the rook will be overmatched by the veteran flamethrower's heat on the next pitch, or he'll be weakly chasing a nasty curve. But instead, the high hard one comes in, and Zimmerman meets it with a high, hard, level one of his own, and the ball caroms off the upper deck in left to tie the game and the rook trots around the bases as if he's used to this. He isn't, not at this level at least, first time.

Cordero retires the side in the bottom of the 9th in his cardiac fashion. Jose Guillen knocks a two-run shot with one out in the 10th, and the Nats actually put the rout to the Mets, scoring 3 more for a 9-4 lead that Felix Rodriguez closes out in the bottom of the 10th for a 9-5 win.

Instead of writing about how the Nats couldn't score on Bannister with runners on 2nd and 3rd and no outs in the 2nd, about how the Mets' leadoff hitter can steal a base and ours can't, about a John Patterson who seems so talented, yet so fragile, I'm writing about how the Nats bullpen-- just like last year's-- manages to pitch 6 innings of shutout ball if you don't count the meaningless balk in the 10th, and about clutch hitting by Nick Johnson and Ryan Zimmerman, two of the players who will have to hit well if our lineup is to be any more than three deep (the three: Vidro, Guillen, and Soriano). I'm writing about how our guy, Chad Cordero, who led the league in saves last year but let's face it doesn't scare people like Billy Wagner does, got the win while Wagner blew the save. Instead of complaining that Frank Robinson loves to play small ball, I'm writing about a 3-run homer and a solo shot to tie, and another 2-knocker in extra innings to take the lead, and a neat little thing called managing when Robinson brought Cordero into a tie game with the pitcher due up in the Nats half of the 10th. Instead of griping about whether an 0-2 team will be good enough to fascinate the way last year's team was, I'm dreaming tonight about a 1-1 team that looks like it could be way better than last year's team was. You remember that team, the one that went, what was it? 81-81?