When the Nats completed the series win over their budding rivals from Baltimore last weekend, things were looking up. They’d won two in a row (and three of four), stalwart starter Livan Hernandez appeared to have returned to last year’s All Star form, and Alfonso Soriano was proving why Jim Bowden coveted him so badly. The team seemed to have turned a corner on their poor start.

But Momentum, she is a fickle lady.

The Nats fell flat on their face in an abysmal 10-3 loss on Monday night where nothing went right. The opening sequence for starter Zach Day was a Willy Taveras single, a stolen base (with an error on the throw), a walk, a wild pitch (with Taveras scoring), and a two-run Lance Berkman homer in Hondo territory in center field. Day managed to pitch into the fourth before leaving the game and heading for the DL. The rest of the game played out as a three hour and 19 minute ordeal for the 18,803 fans – the lowest attendance at RFK since the Nats moved to D.C. Tuesday’s Post followed with a litany of missteps from the team’s tough night.

But just when this club appeared on the edge of an abyss that would send the rest of this season’s fortunes plummeting, they pulled out a nice win on Tuesday, vintage summer of 2005.

Photo by Flickr user walkingparty. See the original here.