Game 5 Recap: Nationals 3, Braves 5

This is the kind of game I pictured for this team during the off-season. Our starter goes six innings, throwing a quality start, our bullpen "closers" make it an easy seventh, eighth, and ninth, and our lineup, which has .300 or better hitters throughout, gets key hits and provides a safe victory. That all happened tonight.

Kenshin Kawakami was a bit off in his major league debut, but he survived his troubles and limited the Nats to just three runs. He also showed some great strikeout ability en route to a six-inning quality start. The bullpen troika of Peter Moylan, Rafael Soriano, and closer Mike Gonzalez performed to perfection. Moylan returned to his normal self, striking out the side with an assortment of pitches while lowering his ERA from infinity to 45.00. Soriano survived a lead-off double to leave his frame scoreless. And Gonzalez finally had a drama-free outing and picked up an actual save.

On the offensive side of the ball for Atlanta, there were hits throughout the order, and power from the first and eighth spots in Kelly Johnson and Jordan Schafer -- Schafer, by the way, has been wonderful to watch this season. He showed us another part of his game today, collecting an infield single by beating the pitcher to the first base bag. He likely could have had two triples, but settled for the safer play and two doubles (of course, Kotchman was clogging up the base paths in front of him for the first attempt).

Anyway, just a fantastic game, and the bullpen seems to be getting over their early season troubles. If they're clicking, and our starters are doing their thing, and our offense is hitting like they've been hitting, then we are a playoff team. Mark it down. Today, this is what a playoff team looks like. Oh yeah, but it's only April.