Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. It’s been a tough week for the Nationals, traveling to Cincinnati to face general manager Jim Bowden’s former team. On Monday they lost by a not-deplorable score of 5-3. A day later, they improved substantially, taking the Reds to 14 innings before letting that one slip away 4-3. But if yesterday seemed destined to be the Nats’ 23-inning 3-2 squeaker victory, well, it wasn’t so. Cincinnati swept the series with a persuasive 12-3 blowout, sending Washington along to their next stop on a road trip that shouldn’t be this tough.

In related news, the Nats bloggers are all but calling for the head of manager Frank Robinson. Capitol Punishment has a bill of particulars, beginning with “The man’s a doddering idiot.” Distinguished Senators piles on.

The Nats have surprised more than a few observers (we call them baseball fans) in keeping a winning record almost two months into the season. But now they’ve dropped five of their last six and haven’t scored more than three runs since May 16. Counting yesterday’s loss, the Nats are 24-23. With a day off to regroup, they’ll try to avoid hitting .500 (which we all said would have been nice, before they started off strong) tomorrow in the first of three games against the National League Champion St. Louis Cardinals. Game time is 8:10 p.m. on WDCA-20.