August came and went, the Nats inaugural season is coming to an end, yet no developments have come in the long-running bidding war for the ownership of the team. Last we checked, eight contenders were in the running, and bids as high as $450 million were rumored. Since then, silence.

Until now. Conflicting information exists regarding how many bidding groups are still in the running (ESPN’s Peter Gammons says it’s down to three, the Post says all eight remain), but in a move that may indicate a potential winner, Indianapolis media mogul Jeffrey Smulyan has added a few local faces to his group. This is significant, Gammons notes, because Smulyan, who formerly owned the Seattle Mariners, is a close friend of Jerry Reinsdorf (who headed up the then-Expos relocation committee) and palatable to Selig, an important condition for any winning bidder. Selig is sensitive, though, to an out-of-towner owning the team, because of the backlash such a move could provoke in and out of D.C. political circles and the threat it could pose to a new stadium — hence the addition of local investors to Smulyan’s team. Local favorites Frederic Malek and Jeffrey Zients, favored by D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, and Jonathan Ledecky, whose recent teaming up with liberal billionaire George Soros sent Republicans in Congress into a tizzy, are still being considered. The move on Smulyan’s part, though, means that the Nationals may be closer to an owner.

And in a particularly sneaky move, MLB has decided to delay the sale of the team until the District dots the i’s and crosses the t’s on the stadium deal, indicating that league officials are trying as best they can to inflate the going price for the team. What, that tidy $300+ million in profit isn’t enough?

No new stadium as of yet, no new ownership — the Nats must be feeling a little unloved.