Final Nats playoff share: $37,045.32

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The Nationals' first-ever trip to the postseason resulted in a nice holiday bonus for all of their players and coaches.

Major League Baseball announced the amounts of all postseason shares today, revealing the Nationals received $2,124,312.75, to be dispersed among uniformed personnel.

Players voted to divvy that sum into 49 full shares (worth $37,045.32 a piece), plus 6.65 partial shares and three cash awards.

That $37,000 bonus may not amount to much for veterans like Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman, who make more than that for each game they play. But it's a significant chunk of money for players who made at or near the league minimum of $500,000, not to

Can they make it back?

Associated Press photo

Davey Johnson believes his Nationals can return to the postseason in 2013.

The mantra was repeated over and over and over by just about everyone in the Nationals organization: This is a ballclub that expects to be good for a long time and expects to make many trips to the postseason.

And that belief was repeated late Friday night in the aftermath of their soul-crushing National League Division Series loss to the Cardinals.

"We've come a long, long way in a fairly short period of time," general manager Mike Rizzo said. "Like I said all along, we like where we're at. We like the core players on this team. And we're going to be excited to ratchet it up in the spring."

The belief this team just entered a long-term window for success was among the guiding principles behind Stephen Strasburg's shutdown, with Rizzo insisting he wanted the right-hander around for future postseason runs. It's among the reasons nearly every roster move

Inside Storen's collapse

Drew Storen walks into the dugout after the ninth inning of Game 5. (Photo by AP)

The protective plastic over the lockers, the cart of champagne bottles, all of it was in place.

All Drew Storen had to do was get one strike.

Twice the Nationals had the Cardinals where they wanted them: two strikes and two outs, a two-run lead.

Full count, two outs on Yadier Molina. He walks. Full count, two outs on David Freese. He walks.

Then, with one 94 mile per hour sinker, the Nationals 2012 season began to unravel before the eyes of the largest crowd in stadium history. Daniel Descalso pelted a ground ball off the glove of Ian Desmond, ricocheting into the outfield and scoring two runs to tie the game at seven.

NLDS Game 1: Nats at Cardinals

Photo by Mark Zuckerman / NATS INSIDER

The Nationals' first-ever postseason runs begins today at Busch Stadium.

ST. LOUIS -- The time has come. No more pontificating. No more speculation. No more anticipation. The postseason has arrived for the Washington Nationals, and all that's left to do is take the field and play ball.

No surprises from Davey Johnson with his Game 1 lineup. It's the same one he fielded throughout the final two weeks of the pennant race. He doesn't have any surprises planned for his use of the pitching staff and said all of his relievers are capable of going back-to-back-to-back days if necessary. And he didn't feel any need to speak to his entire roster as a group in advance of this series.

"If I had a meeting," the 69-year-old skipper said, "they'd think I was panicking or something."

So there's nothing really left to say except: Enjoy the game, and please check back here for updates and analysis throughout...

NATIONAL LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES - GAME 1
WASHINGTON NATIONALS at ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
Where: Busch Stadium
Gametime: 3:07 p.m. EDT
TV: TBS
Radio: WJFK (106.7 FM), WFED (1500 AM), WSPZ (570 AM), XM 184
Weather: Sunny, 53 degrees, Wind 9 mph LF to RF

NATIONALS
RF Jayson Werth
CF Bryce Harper
3B Ryan Zimmerman
1B Adam LaRoche

Breaking down the NLDS

ST. LOUIS -- One owns 11 World Series titles, including the most recent one, and features a roster loaded with postseason experience yet a rookie manager who has never been here before.

The other owns zero World Series titles -- at least, technically, as a franchise -- and features a roster with barely any postseason experience yet a veteran manager who has guided four different organizations into October.

You want contrasts? The National League Division Series between the Nationals and Cardinals is all about contrasts, pitting one of baseball's most-storied franchises against one of the game's historically least-successful towns.

But how do these two teams stack up on the field? Let's break down the matchup...

ROTATION
NATS: After boasting the majors' best rotation most of the season, the Nationals slipped a bit in September and wound up slightly

Calm, cool and collected

Associated Press photo

Bryce Harper doesn't sound fazed one bit by his first postseason appearance.

ST. LOUIS -- With a pack of reporters firing off questions and trying to get him to admit he's at least mildly caught up in the moment on the eve of the Nationals' first-ever postseason appearance, Bryce Harper refused to concede the point.

"I think you guys are more nervous than we are," the 19-year-old outfielder said. "It's just another game, just another series. I'm excited, but I'm just going to look at it like another game and another place we play and another team we play. I guess when you step in the box it's going to be a lot different with the crowd and everything, but you can't look at it that way."

Across the Nationals clubhouse Saturday evening, that sentiment prevailed. So what if only four of the 25 players on their roster for the National League Division Series have any postseason experience, totaling 67 games? And so what if 21 of the Cardinals' 25 players have been through this before, combining to appear in a staggering 290 postseason games?

The Nationals insist that won't make much of any difference when the two clubs take the field Sunday afternoon for Game 1 of a highly anticipated series.

"I think this team has done it all year, handle our emotions," third baseman Ryan Zimmerman said. "This whole year has been
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Rotation, roster set

ST. LOUIS -- The Nationals won a major-league best 98 games this season with a roster and starting rotation that didn't change very much along the way, so they're not going to change much heading into their first-ever postseason series.

Manager Davey Johnson said today his rotation for the National League Division Series against the Cardinals will stand pat. Gio Gonzalez starts Game 1 tomorrow, with Jordan Zimmermann following him on Monday at Busch Stadium. Edwin Jackson will then start Game 3 in Washington on Wednesday, with Ross Detwiler pitching Game 4 on Thursday.

Johnson didn't formally reveal his 25-man roster for the series, but he said there would be no surprises and made it all but clear rookie Christian Garcia would be in the bullpen with John Lannan left off the roster.

In the end, the Nationals felt it best to dance with the guys who got there here in the first place.

NL Wild Card Game

Associated Press file photo

Turner Field hosts the first-ever, winner-take-all, NL Wild Card Game.

And so the postseason has arrived. And for the first time, the Nationals have tangible reason to care about the outcome. That's because they'll be playing the winner of today's first-ever, winner-take-all, NL Wild Card Game between the Braves and Cardinals. The Nationals will all huddle around their own TV sets to watch this one, then board a plane tomorrow for either Atlanta or St. Louis and in advance of Sunday's Game 1 of the National League Division Series.

Both managers today are sending their aces to the mound. Kris Medlen (10-1, 1.57 ERA this season) gets the ball for the Braves, who will attempt to win for the 23rd consecutive time when the right-hander starts a game. The Cardinals' Kyle Lohse (16-3, 2.86 ERA) just completed the best season of his career and makes his 10th career postseason appearance (he's 0-4 with a 5.54 ERA).

Emotions surely will be strong at Turner Field, with Chipper Jones playing perhaps the final game of his Cooperstown-worthy career. In order to extend his time in uniform at least a few more days, he and his teammates will have to dethrone the reigning World Series champs.

There's nothing quite like a one-game playoff. And we've never had this much reason to watch in Washington. Enjoy the game, everyone...

NATIONAL LEAGUE WILD CARD GAME
ST. LOUIS CARDINALS at ATLANTA BRAVES
Where: Turner Field
Gametime: 5:07 p.m. EDT
TV: TBS
Radio: WSPZ (570 AM), XM 185
Weather: Sunny, 80 degrees, Wind 3 mph out to CF

CARDINALS (88-74)
CF Jon Jay
RF Carlos Beltran
LF Matt Holliday
1B Allen Craig

Assembling a postseason roster

US Presswire photo

Rookie Christian Garcia could squeeze his way onto the postseason pitching staff.

The Nationals, officially, have known they'll be competing in the postseason for two full weeks now, so they've had plenty of time to consider their 25-man October roster.

Major League Baseball, however, doesn't require teams to actually submit their roster until the morning of Game 1 of a particular series, so Mike Rizzo and Davey Johnson don't need to finalize anything until Sunday morning.

Which gives those two men ample opportunity to run through every possible scenario while also waiting to find out the identity of their opponent for the National League Division Series.

The answer to that question -- Braves or Cardinals? -- could play a big role in deciding the last couple of spots on the Nationals' roster. Johnson isn't hiding his desire to have more left-handed pitchers for a series against Atlanta than St. Louis, given the composition of each club's

D.C.'s arrival as a baseball town

Photo by Bob Youngentob / CSNwashington.com

Postseason tickets have been the hottest item in town since the Nationals clinched.

How does a town respond to something that hasn't happened in 79 years? How does a city that hasn't hosted a postseason ballgame since Franklin Roosevelt's first term in the White House catch pennant fever? And how does a region known mostly for dividing itself down the middle along political party lines come together in support of one common goal: Winning a World Series?

Washington is about to answer all of those questions, and the rest of the country is about to find out what those who live here have known for decades: D.C. is a big event town.

And for the next week (and perhaps the entire month) there's going to be no bigger event in town than Nationals playoff games.

From the moment the Nationals clinched their city's first postseason berth since 1933, there's been a baseball buzz around the District and surrounding suburbs not experienced in generations, if ever. The local papers are filled with more baseball coverage than many have time to read. Local TV news has hopped on board the bandwagon. Radio

Beltway Baseball: Clinching Edition

A small disclaimer: We taped this episode of Beltway Baseball yesterday afternoon, before the Nationals had officially clinched a playoff berth. But with their magic number at that point down to 1, we felt fairly comfortable talking about this team's various postseason scenarios.

CSNwashington.com's Chase Hughes and I also addressed some other topics, including Bryce Harper's NL Rookie of the Year chances and the potential ninth-inning dilemma facing Davey Johnson.

Then Amanda Comak of the Washington Times joined me to talk about what, if anything, can be done to correct the recent spate of umpiring mistakes that have plagued the Nationals, the power of cortisone for Ryan Zimmerman and Danny Espinosa and the decision to start Chien-Ming Wang on Sunday.

Enjoy the show!

The playoffs are the payoff

Associated Press photo

Davey Johnson waves to the crowd after the Nationals clinched a playoff berth.

Fireworks shot off from the roof at Nationals Park at 10:02 p.m. Thursday evening. Within seconds, players were handed commemorative T-shirts and caps. A crowd of 30,359 roared with approval as everyone in uniform retreated down the dugout steps and into the home clubhouse.

There they were greeted and congratulated by 86-year-old Ted Lerner -- perhaps the only one in the building who was around the last time something like this occurred in this town -- and other members of ownership, and collectively they raised flutes of champagne and toasted their success after a 4-1 victory over the Dodgers clinched Washington's first playoff berth since 1933.

Someone asked Davey Johnson to say a few words, so the 69-year-old manager did. He conveyed, as he always does, exactly how he felt.

"What's this?" Johnson grumbled. "We ain't done yet."
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Playoff tickets on sale Friday

Individual tickets for potential National League Wild Card or Division Series game will go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. Friday, according to the Nationals.

A maximum of four tickets for each game may be purchased online at nationals.com/postseason or by calling (888) 632-6287 on a first-come, first-served basis.

In addition, the Nationals announced they will sell a limited number of standing room only tickets the day of each postseason game, subject to availability.

Tickets for any potential National League Championship Series or World Series games will go on sale in coming weeks.

The Nationals enter tonight's scheduled series opener against the Dodgers with a magic number of 3 to clinch a postseason berth. Their magic number to clinch the NL East title (and avoid the one-game Wild Card playoff) is 11.