All that good will.  All that excitement and much-needed energy.  On a night when the struggling bats produced 5 separate home runs and a come-back win in the 9th, you’d think that would be the story.  Perhaps Ronnie Belliard’s strong homecoming, a 3 for 4 night with 2 home runs and 3 RBI, would be cause for celebration and a desperately needed jump-start for this terrible team.   Or you could talk about a struggling overworked set-up man who lost the lead, failed to get any of the batters he faced out and walked off the mound dejected.  Maybe you’d write about the young catcher who continues to prove that the Front Office plan to keep him in the minors was ill-advised all along.  Instead, the story is something else…

Redding went 6 innings, giving up 4 runs.  Three of them came in the tough first inning including a 2 run shot to Doumit.  Redding settled down and pitched effectively after the first. Rivera, Manning, Hanrahan and Rauch all held the Pirates scoreless and hitless for the rest of the game.  Ayala did not have the same luck.

In the 8th inning, Ayala issued a lead off walk to Jason Bay.  Doumit doubled on a change-up that put the tying run at third and the winning run at second.  Nady singled home Bay to tie the game and Acta came out to get Ayala out of the game.  Manning struck out LaRoche before being replaced by Hanrahan.  Mientkiewicz’s sacrifice fly scored Doumit to put the Pirates ahead.

The offense certainly woke up tonight against Paul Maholm.  The Pittsburgh starter gave up 4 home runs to the Nats (Belliard twice, Young and Flores).  In the 9th inning, lights-out closer Matt Capps blew the save by surrendering a double to Dukes and a home run to Milledge.  We wish the story ended there.

Instead, we’re talking about a very important incident between Manny Acta and Elijah Dukes, a moment captured by the Pirates’ television broadcast and available here. The broadcast shows Acta and Dukes getting into a heated argument in the dug-out. Mark Zuckerman writes:

As Dukes and Milledge crossed the plate, Dukes looked back at Capps (who blew his first save in 16 tries this season) in a move that could have been perceived as taunting the opposing pitcher.

When Dukes returned to the dugout, Acta had words for him. Dukes yelled back at his manager, prompting Acta to yell back himself and players to get between the two.

Dukes later took his position in right field for the bottom of the ninth with a menacing glare in his eyes, forcing Milledge at one point to come over and try to calm him down.

As the Nationals gathered in the middle of the diamond to congratulate each other at the conclusion of the game, Dukes did not offer his hand to Acta, who only smirked.

While we could be talking about a great, much-needed win, but Dukes has personally changed the tune. While hesitant to launch into a whole tirade about Dukes, who has generally been well behaved as a Nat, this incident really highlights some of the concerns we had when he was brought here. You don’t taunt opposing pitchers, especially when you’re batting .207. You don’t taunt umpires after hitting walk-off home runs. But you most certainly do not get into a screaming match with your manager. Especially if your manager is the level-headed, unexcitable Manny Acta. Worse yet, after such a fight, you do not disrespect him on the diamond by dropping your hand to avoid his high five.

We’ll see what happens next. God bless television and DVR technology, because expectedly, Acta has already minimized the incident. You have to wonder. What if the subject of the incident would have been Ryan Church? What about Felipe Lopez? Would they be playing today? Would they be protected from media scrutiny or thrown under the bus? On a team with so many class acts (Boone, Johnson, Kearns, Zimmerman…etc…), disrespecting your manager is just unacceptable. Actually, it’s always unacceptable.

Update:   A Zuckerman gem:

This much I am certain of: Despite the Nationals’ best efforts to try to get Dukes to turn his life and his baseball career around, there are plenty of people in that clubhouse who simply don’t believe it’s going to happen, are fed up with the outfielder’s actions and would wholeheartedly support his removal from the roster. That said, there are several people in that same clubhouse who have grown to like Dukes very much and believe he’s on the right track. Certainly, no one can argue that he’s a supremely talented ballplayer who has the ability to be a real impact guy on the field (we’ve absolutely seen that over the last two weeks or so).

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