With the season in full swing, and with the Nationals in DC for a long home stretch, the boys definitely seem to be having some well deserved fun. Celebrating a sweep against the Marlins, and a series win against the first place Braves, the players have reason to smile. It is safe to say that the team is thriving under Manager Manny Acta’s leadership, proving that a positive attitude does go a long way.

In his column last Friday, Zimmerman gave us some insight into the practical jokes the Nats play on one another during the season. Ryan says He, Johnson, Schneider, and Kearns do most of the practical joking. He highlighted a prank from spring training, when Johnson filled Schneider’s back jeans pocket with baby powder, and later when Schneiderman pulled his wallet out to buy something baby powder went everywhere. It seems relief pitcher Ryan Wagner has also been part of the practical joking. Turns out, Ryan was taking a nap in the clubhouse on Tuesday, and was awoken with a shaving cream pie in his face. Ryan said, “Good things never happen when you fall asleep in the clubhouse.” Wagner said it has been kind of a slow year for these type of hijinks, but I’d bet that Wanger won’t let the pie in the face go without some sort of retaliation. As the Nats continue this season, I am sure more pranks are in the works. A few words of advice, keep the baby powder, Kool-Aid, and applesauce away from those wonderful Nationals!

Thank you Dan Steinberg.We’ve been trying to figure these out for most of the season, but they keep changing! At least DC Sports Bog is keeping us, and our ipods, up to date.

Nice work by Speigner and Billy Traber.Beautiful home-run and a great night for Ryan Zimmerman.Key hit by Ryan Church to put the Nats in the lead.Photo Credit: AP Nick WassThe rain stayed away from RFK, though the Politics students from Catholic University mostly bailed on our group event.The Stephs sat in 222 - thanks to a generous, wonderful gesture by somebody.We also had the pleasure of meeting Screech’s Best Friend and seeing several Nats (FickNasty, Chief, Schneiderman and others) drive away right past us as we walked to my car (Lopez even waved!).

8:40 What do we need?RUNSWhen do we need them?NOW!After a rough start for Jerome Williams, things have settled down. The Nats still trail the Braves 5-0. In the 5th inning, Hudson has a no-hitter that we’re going to break up soon.8:43 Perfect timing. Robert Fick just hit a single to right field.8:45 Langerhans brought Scneider home. Braves lead 5-1.8:56 Guzman singles to shallow right/center field.8:57 Zimmerman grounds into a double-play.9:00 Obnoxious drunk Braves fans in Section 443 go crazy at the thought of beating the big, bad, terrible intimidating Nationals.9:01 Renteria hits a solo home-run….Nats trail 6-1.9:10 The Stephs are twisting and shouting in the 7th Inning Stretch; at least they think they are twisting and shouting. You can’t hear the music from Section 443 because the speakers are STILL broken. We should have talked to Mr. Kasten about this problem on Saturday night at 2 AM when we had the chance.9:14 Chief is pitching in the 8th. How strange.9:24 Nice play at first by FickNasty to catch the runner at 2nd.9:29 Chief strikes out Diaz for the 3rd out.9:30 Obnoxious drunk Braves fans leave9:31 Nook hits to deep center for a triple!9:35 Batista with a sacrifice fly to center; Nook scores. Nats 2, Braves 6. 2 Outs.9:36 Fans sing Sweet Caroline as Braves change pitchers.9:40 Lopez strikes out.9:45 Rivera closes the top of the ninth with 3 quick outs.Okay, we’re not the Red Sox but a girl can dream. 6-2 bottom of the ninth. Let’s Go Nats.9:50 Nats lose 6-2 to the mean old Braves.

Congrats to Jason Bergmann on a great game! For those of you who missed it, Berggy had an outstanding outing against the Braves today. Pitching halfway through the 9th, he had 10 strikes and allowed only two hits and one walk.A few other quick highlights from the game…- Christian Guzman had a triple in the 1st. Ryan Zimmerman then had a sacrifice, allowing Guz to score early on.- Ryan Church also had a nice hit in the 7th, allowing Austin Kearns to hit him in.- Colome had a great close striking out Andruw Jones… aww yeah!!!We do hope Smoltz is okay after his accident with Kearns. And too bad for Kearns… he has the worst luck.Finally, a quick bit on yesterday’s game. It was a perfect sunny Mother’s Day in Washington. I do believe RFK was near perfection with the sun shining down. All the players were in rare form with their families on the field prior to the game. Rauch, Johnson, and Schneider all had their adorable daughters on the field. Check out Miss Chatter’s pics of the guys and their families.While all the excitement appeared to be on the field prior to the game, the three girls noticed someone else of interest in the crowd. Yup, here we are with James Carville.

I think it’s safe to say that the 3 girls with heart are starting to feel like we live at RFK. We were hoping last nights game would be a quick one, as each of us had things to do outside of baseball, but we happily stayed until the end of a rain delayed marathon game. In order to help shortstop Felipe Lopez celebrate his birthday we made him a sign and we made it to the jumbo screen, satisfaction for our work. Things continued to go well until the 5th inning when the sky opened up and rain began to fall in a steady stream. A rain delay was called and we settled in to wait out the storm.

After almost 3 hours of rain, the tarp was taken off the field, the players were warming up, and we were able to move up to seats right along the 3rd base line! Sitting there waiting for the game to start again, we spotted MissChatter in front of us and said hello. It was great to meet such a dedicated fan and talented blogger. The game started in the 5th inning with Speigner in to pitch ( I admit I was a little nervous as his last appearance was during out trip to Chicago…see below) it proved tough for him as the Marlins scored 2 runs in that inning. The Nats came back fighting though with Austin Kearns hitting a rare in-the-park homerun to make the score 3-2. Shortly after, the rain started falling again but determined not to miss a second or give up our seats, the girls and I stayed put until the bottom of the 9th when the sky opened up AGAIN with a steady down pour. The tarp was rolled out for a second time and we ran for some shelter in the 300 level. While waiting out the rain we met another Nats blogger, Nationals Power and had an awesome conversation, he gave us some great baseball info…like the fact that Austin Kearns tends to throw his bats, so Friday and Saturday’s incidents were not such a rare occasion!

The second delay lasted about an hour, but it seemed longer because the girls and I were soaking wet and pretty cold, but we were determined not to leave. At this point I bet less than 100 fans were left in RFK. The 9th inning resumed about 1:20am. We stood right behind the dugout for the last inning with most of the other fans. Manny Acta made some great changes in the lineup at a critical moment. Brian Schneider started the rally with a walk to first, Logan was brought in to run for him. Dmitri Young came off the bench and hit a great single, advancing Nook to 3rd. One of our new favorites Jesus Flores was up next and walked to first loading the bases. Felipe Lopez came up next, we sang him happy birthday, and he singled to right brining Nook home to tie the game. With the bases loaded and rain falling AGAIN, Guzman struck out for the second out of the inning, and Ryan Zimmerman was up to bat. The first pitch was high and fast forcing Zim to spin out of the way. At this point, it was pretty clear that something big was going to happen. Zimmerman smacked the next fast ball out of the park for his second grand slam of his career and the Nationals win 7-3 at 1:42am!! The players and fans went crazy; Zim got mobbed on his way back to the dugout and fans cheered constantly.
Last, but not least, we were leaving RFK when K spotted Stan Kasten walking around. We asked him for a quick picture but warned him that we were soaked. Stan said, “That’s okay. I’m soaked too” and we got our picture.

The whole game was an amazing thing to see; we are so proud to have something to grin about and are ready to see the end of the series today. See you all at RFK!!

More tomorrow…it’s 2:53 AM! Enjoy some pictures until we can post!

Chad Cordero’s grandmother Josie passed away Friday morning, ending her battle with brain cancer. Chad, who has been on bereavement since Tuesday, was able to be with her and his family during her final moments. While the death of a loved one is never an easy thing to cope with, we hope that Chad felt some comfort in being with his family and not having to worry about baseball for a few days. With that said we are excited to have our closer back in Washington and continue to wish him all the best this season.