The Nats are right where they want to be a month into the season. Technically, they're in better shape than that. .500 ball is, quite frankly, just fine.

With the New York Mets wobbling into town this week for a three game set Tuesday through Thursday, the Nats are poised to host last year's World Series champion Giants this weekend with a winning record. Not too shabby for a team that couldn't spell their own names as recently as 2009.

Let's be honest. The Nats this year are still a far remove from the cream of the National League East, but they've come leaps and bounds from opening day at RFK back in 2005. And the idea that they could soon be climbing over people's backs for a wild card spot in the not-too-distant future isn't quite so laughable anymore.

I'm not talking about franchise-of-the-decade accolades yet. There have been plenty of mistakes, and there's been plenty of egg for plenty of faces. But the fact remains that the Nats are moving in the right direction and there's not a person with two brain cells to rub together that would argue that.

Anyone who is still moaning about the Nats and how not good they are need only to look a few hundred miles north to see how quickly a franchise can die on the vine.

In 2005, the Mets were poised for a run of N.L. East dominance that would have taken us back to the mid-80's heyday of Doc, HoJo, Straw, Nails, El Sid and the Kid. New York was going to be, as much as it could with the Yankees ensconced in the Bronx, a Mets town again and people were excited.

In 2006, that promise blossomed like a rose, the Mets running away with their division, and pasting the Dodgers in the first round of the playoffs, with the Cardinals emerging as their second round opponent in what most people considered a pretty favorable match-up for the Mets. Seven games, one back-door breaking ball, one turned-to-stone Carlos Beltran and one called strike three later, the Mets were toast. The Cards went on to pummel the Tigers in the World Series (that was the Series when all the Tigers pitchers conveniently forgot to throw the ball anywhere, including home plate) and the Mets retired to the off-season, safe in the knowledge that this was the first step in a series of playoff appearances that would surely culminate in at least a World Series appearance, if not with an actual trophy.

Look where the Mets find themselves now. Scuffling along in last place in their division, having been passed up by one glorified expansion team, another legitimate expansion team (that's already won TWO World Series!), the Braves (ugh...) and worst of all, those mooks up in Philly who have somehow turned themselves into a real, legitimate ball-club. Never you mind that Ryan Howard isn't producing the way he should be for what he's getting paid, that Jimmy Rollins seems to lose a step every other week, that Chase Utley is breaking down before our eyes and that Jayson Werth is now playing down the 95 in DC; the pitching in Philly seems to be legit and healthy, and as long as that's the case, they get a free pass to the playoffs.

The Mets? Put it this way. I hold my breath every morning when I open Safari because I know it's just a matter of time before the Mets find themselves in receivership purgatory because of this Bernie Madoff boondoggle. Maybe they deserve it, maybe they don't, but there simply cannot be a worse, sadder place to play professional baseball right now than Queens. The only reason Bud Selig brought the hammer down on the Dodgers first is because he's never really liked team owner Frank McCourt and he considers Mets' owner Fred Wilpon and family close personal friends.

Honestly, the situation in Queens is so disheartening it pains me.

It's almost enough to make me a Redskins fan, just to see how bad it really could be.

Almost.

Speaking of football, glad to see the draft is taking place this week like everything is business as usual. Talk about fiddling as Rome burns. And short of a giant love-in breaking out this week in Minnesota, where Judge Susan Richard Nelson is ruling on the legality of the league's lockout of the players, nobody's going to know anything until May at the earliest. Regardless of Judge Nelson's ruling, the loser will appeal and the lockout will stay in place until that appeal is decided.

But in the meantime, teams are picking players. For the upcoming season. Which might not even happen.

Business as usual.

Some people expected the Knicks to give the Celtics a run for their money in the first round of the NBA playoffs this year.

Those people were delusional.

Were they somehow unfamiliar with the recent bodies of work of these two teams? Were they wearing James Dolan tinted glasses? Had they been talking to Zeke? I'd never seen such a ridiculously boneheaded "fashion" pick tear around the water cooler.

Honestly. The Knicks? This year?!? C'mon.

And lastly, congrats to the Caps. Nicely done against Torts and his Rangers. That's one thing they can cross off the list. With that kind of focus and a couple more fortuitous bounces, they'll be able to cross a few more things off the list. In order:

Conference Semifinals.
Conference Finals.
Stanley Cup Final.

Let's go Caps.

Alex can be reached at cuda24@yahoo.com