From the jubilation that erupted in the middle of the ninth inning and continued unabated for nearly an hour, one would never notice that the Washington Nationals actually lost last night’s game. They did—2-0, to the Philadelphia Phillies—but the pivotal moment came about 9:45 p.m. from some 250 miles away in Pittsburgh, when the Atlanta Braves’ Brian McCann hit a dribbling ground ball back to the mound for an easy out to hand Atlanta a 2-1 loss to the Pirates.

Back in Washington, that final out at PNC Park dropped the Nationals’ magic number to clinch the National League East to zero, unleashing an exuberant frenzy by players, fans, broadcasters and gleeful tweets by various local news organizations. That the hard-hitting core of Michael Morse, Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa were due up to attempt one more comeback against the Phillies’ 2-0 lead mattered little.

The singalong to Morse’s walk-on song, A-ha’s “Take on Me,” was more boisterous than usual. And when Espinosa grounded out to end the game, Nationals Park exploded into far more cheer than what usually accompanies a home loss to a dreaded rival.

It was by some measure, a replay of the scene on September 20, when the Nationals clinched D.C.’s first Major League Baseball playoff spot since the year Franklin Roosevelt took office. But it was also more: By locking down the division title, the Nationals will avoid some namby-pamby single-game match that will open baseball’s revised postseason system and instead proceed to the National League Division Series with home-field advantage. (That advantage, however, is a bit skewed, as baseball switched to a format for the NLDS in which the team with the weaker regular-season record hosts the first two games before the better squad hosts the remainder.)

As the game ended, the Nationals, quickly donning their MLB-ordained division championship apparel, clamored back onto the field for an extended ovation, before heading back to the clubhouse for a boozy celebration, one that apparently included a guest appearance by CNN anchor (and friend of Ted Lerner) Wolf Blitzer.

However, the fans upstairs weren’t done yet. In waves, the Nationals re-emerged onto the field for post-game interviews like the one given to MASN by an amped-up Gio Gonzalez. Morse ran to his left-field faithful, a bottle of champagne in each hand, and spritzed the still-cheering crowd.

“That was a class move on his part,” said Bryan Weaver, the Ward 1 civic activist, who was in row B of section 110. “Good thing we weren’t wearing dry-clean only T-shirts!”

There was a brief crisis in the clubhouse about half an hour into the party, when MASN reported the Nationals had exhausted their supply of beer. In an on-air interview, the pitcher John Lannan called for more. The request appeared to be fulfilled, because a few minutes later, Adam LaRoche was bathed in beer while giving his own interview. (The locker room’s two underaged revelers—LaRoche’s 9-year-old son, Drake, and 19-year-old Bryce Harper—dumped apple cider on each other.)

But perhaps the most touching bit of the party came in the first postgame soundbite from Manager Davey Johnson. Johnson, who led the New York Mets to 1986 World Series, told MASN this division title was more meaningful than any he won with the Mets, Cincinnati Reds or Baltimore Orioles. More so, it made ending the 12-year hiatus from the dugout he took between 1999 and 2011 all the more worthwhile.

“I love baseball,” Johnson said. “And I love Washington, D.C.”