Ryan Zimmerman, the mandatory all-star, threw a ball into the stands for no apparent reason. Sean Burnett played hot potato with the ball on a come-backer. Nyjer Morgan got picked off first. The Nats lost.

Bottom line: The squad came out of the All-Star break in midseason form.

***

Local newspapering doesn't get any better than when KidsPost gets all sportsy and righteousy. So it was yesterday as Fred Bowen used the firing of Manny Acta as a teachable moment:

"It's always a shame when someone gets blamed for something that's not his fault," counsels KidsPost.

But after giving that sage advice to all the little boys and girls, Bowen turns into Krusty the Klown and just plain rails about the Nats as if the team owes him money:

(AFTER THE JUMP: Bowen blames Bowden? More more more on Jim Riggleman's Thunderation cheer? We now know where Marvcus Patton is, but what about the other guy? McEnroe being McEnroe?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: KidsPost Tells Junior to Blame Anybody But Manny Acta?" »

How mockable is Dan Snyder's way of doing business?

Well, consider that today, even KidsPost, the children's arm of the Washington Post, took big shots at The Snyder Method.

In a story titled "Redskins Don't Follow the Best Examples," sports columnist Fred Bowen tells young boys and girls that signing Albert Haynesworth, DeAngelo Hall and Derrick Dockery ain't the right way to go to build a winning franchise.

Bowen doesn't scold the Skins for bringing in a guy (Haynesworth) who tried to maim an opponent by stomping on and splitting open his helmetless head (and then tried to act innocent in front of a national TV audience that had just witnessed his barbarism) or a player that's been deemed a me-first locker room cancer (Hall) everywhere else he's been.

No, Bowen's upset with Snyder for the same ol' "spend loudly" method that he's used most offseasons to build interest in his mediocre squad.

"[I]t seems to me tht the Redskins are trying to build a championship team by spending a lot of money on just a few players. And that doesn't work," Bowen writes. "If the Redskins want to be successful, they should look at the best teams in the National Football League and do what they do."

There are better ways, Bowen tells the next generation of potential Skins fans.

"They might have more success if they acted more like the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers than like the Washington Redskins," he writes.

Ouch. But hilarious.