Los Angeles 5 WASHINGTON 0 (ESPN Boxscore)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — When a franchise is rebuilding, wins and loses are not necessarily the most important aspect of a game. Take last night for example. The Nationals gave up half as many runs to the Dodgers as the night before — they lost 5-0 instead of 10-0, a 50% improvement. Way to go guys!

Mike Bascik made his third start of the season for Washington. He had a solid outing, giving up two in the fifth. In the sixth, Cristian Guzman made an error fielding a Jeff Kent groundball. The next batter, Russell Martin made him pay when he homered. Bacsik was on the hook for four runs, though two of them were unearned.

The Nats couldn’t get anything going at the plate. The few baserunners they had seemed to come with two outs. I don’t recall ever seeing a runner get past second base. Dodgers starter Derek Lowe went seven before yielding to the bullpen. He also had a hit and walked twice.

Nats Spend a Couple Quiet Nights at Home – The Post

Nats’ scoreless streak continues – The Wash. Times

RHP Shawn Hill is getting a second opinion (The Post and The Wash. Times, respectively) on his pitching elbow. It started bothering him during a throwing session the other day. He beleives he may have changed his mechanics due to his injured left shoulder. In other pitching, pitching, pitching news, Luis Ayala was in D.C. for the time this season yesterday. He is recovering from Tommy John surgery. Another reliever, Ryan Wagner, is headed for Birmingham to have his ailing rotator cuff looked at by Dr. James Andrews.

A Ted Leonsis blog post defending The Plan inspires an article from The Wash. Times.

GM Jim Bowden is talking about the draft in “his” weekly Wash. Examiner column.

C Brian Schneider and P John Patterson want the Nats to eat healthier in the clubhouse, so no more candy or fried chicken (second item; nationals.com).

I made it out to RFK for last night’s game. My mom had a pair of 200 level tickets and asked if I wanted to go with her and I said sure. We had a good time together.

There was way too many Red Sox fans there. I’d say that New England must be losing most of its population to here (like Pittsburgh) except that none of these people had the “Pahk ya cah in Havud Yad” accent. That bandwagon is too full.

I ran into Joe Riley of Nationals Power on the concourse. Always good to see a fellow blogger.

Saw a few Brooklyn hats — why? The Dodgers left the borough 50 years ago. That would be like me going to a Twins or Rangers game wearing my old (and long lost) Senators hat.

Teddy didn’t even race and waited until the t-shirt toss to make an appearance.