Swinging back into high gear

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They insisted all along that the previous two nights were aberrations, a simple product of two of baseball's best pitchers dominating them and not a warning sign of danger ahead.

The Washington Nationals were right. With Brad Penny and Derek Lowe sitting comfortably in the visitors' dugout at RFK Stadium and the less-accomplished Mark Hendrickson on the mound last night for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Nationals rediscovered their old formula for success and walked away with a thoroughly impressive 11-4 victory before a crowd of 20,982.

On the heels of back-to-back shutouts at the hands of Penny, Lowe and the Dodgers' bullpen, Washington overpowered Hendrickson, riding a four-hit performance from red-hot Dmitri Young, three hits from Cristian Guzman and four RBI from Ryan Zimmerman to match the club's biggest offensive output in two-plus years at RFK Stadium.

"We weren't down," Young said of the clubhouse vibe after a 19-inning scoring drought. "They could have done that against any team. They just did that against us. We can't hold our heads low because they did that against us."

They didn't. Zimmerman's two-run homer in the first gave the Nationals an early lead, and converted reliever Micah Bowie used that cushion to spur himself to an effective, 51/3-inning outing and earn his second straight win as a starter.

An impressive eighth-inning performance from Jon Rauch (who hadn't pitched in a week) coupled with a late five-run explosion off Dodgers setup man Jonathan Broxton allowed Washington (22-32) to salvage one win in this series against the National League West leaders.

"It was just nice to get on the board first," Zimmerman said. "We faced two good pitchers, Penny and Lowe, and just to be able to score first and put the pressure on them felt better than anything else."

The two early runs were nice, but the Nationals didn't rest. Instead, they kept the pressure on all night, manufacturing a run in the third, then taking advantage of some shoddy defense to add three more in the fifth.

That rally began with an RBI single from Young, just one of the 21 hits he has racked up over his last 39 at-bats, a stretch that has solidified his status as the club's best offensive player (and made him all the more attractive to potential trade partners).

"I don't like talking about hitting like that," the superstitious first baseman said. "Hitting's contagious, and when we all hit like that, we're going to score runs."