While You Were Sleeping The Nats Clinched Their Second NL East Title In Three Years

 
 
 
Real MVP of last night was Dan Kolko, the sideline reporter for the Nats. He is likely legally blind at this point as he took more shots to the eye than Bree Olson, but he stole the show. Electric performance.

USA Today - With a 3-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves, the Washington Nationals clinched the National League East on Tuesday: How they clinched: Winning at second-place Atlanta for the second night in a row – and Washington’s fourth win against the Braves in five games over the past nine days – finished off a team that had nagged the Nats for nearly two years. Atlanta had won 25 of 35 games against Washington since September 2012. Team RBI leader Ian Desmond hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning and Tanner Roark won for the 14th time in his first season in the Nationals rotation. Roark allowed five singles and no walks in seven innings, and has given up two or fewer earned runs in 22 of his 30 starts.

Just as we all knew, the best team in baseball clinched the NL East last night. Doesn’t mean tons, as they did the same two years ago. Couple differences about this season: 1) Strasburg leads the league in strikeouts and won’t be shut down for no reason for the playoffs. That still goes down as the worst decision in baseball history. 2) The lineup is better. Top to bottom, this lineup is stacked. And Zimmerman is coming back soon. If he regains form, the number of options this team has across the infield depending on pitching matchups is scary. 3) The bullpen is improved. Storen and Clippard are unhittable, plain and simple.