The Cubs get to host the Nationals this weekend – and that could ugly.

After sweeping the Reds and winning two of three games at Colorado earlier this month, Washington rolled off 12 consecutive losses. In the middle of that slide, they visited Milwaukee and handed the grateful Brewers four victories.

“We know what we’re in for here,” third baseman Ryan Zimmerman told the Washington Times. “It’s not like we have a $100 million team out there losing 12 in a row. We want to win just as much as any other team, but sometimes the other teams are just better.”

They actually did the Cardinals a favor Thursday night by winning at Philadelphia 4-3, boosting their record to 45-83 for the season. That slowed the Phillies wild-card charge for a night, anyway.

Now the Nationals head to Wrigley Field. The Cubs are 47-18 at home. They have won 10 of their last 13 games overall.

Trying to stay focused, the Cubs remembered that John Lannan actually beat them 2-0 back in April.

“You respect every team and, obviously, we have to start swinging the bats better because any team can shut you down,” second baseman Mark DeRosa told the Chicago Tribune. “That guy pitching [Friday], Lannan, he shut us down pretty good at their place.”

But bad things tend to happen to bad teams. Here is a fascinating look at how the Nationals failed to sign top pick Aaron Crow, a pitcher from Mizzou. You just feel GM Jim Bowden’s pain on this one.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while wondering what took the IOC so long to probe obvious age violations by the Chinese gymnastics team:

• Now that Team USA failed to win softball gold, will the IOC welcome the sport back in 2016?
• Who sprayed the U.S. track batons with Pam?
• Didn’t the U.S. used to be pretty competitive in Olympic boxing? What happened there?

THE JOYS OF JOURNALISM

ESPN served up these great moments in interviewing:

Something for young kids to keep in mind as they choose between TV journalism and the actuarial science.

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Pat Forde, ESPN.com: “On a night when the American men’s and women’s relay squads dressed like a community college team that entered a local meet late, they ran down to the quality of their bibs. They ran like small-time amateurs. Twice in an inept 30-minute span, the Americans fumbled the baton in preliminary races and eliminated themselves from the 400 relays they historically have owned. In a meet that has revealed the precipitous decline of U.S. track and field, the twin tink-tinks of aluminum hitting track heralded the arrival at rock bottom.”

Thomas Boswell, Washington Post, on Usain Bolt: “When tempted to think too hard about Bolt, just remember his age. He turned 22 on Thursday, shortly after his record-setting run. He’s a young 22, as well. He grew up running barefoot on grass tracks. His aunt burns down her sugar cane fields, machete in hand, ready to chop them up. When he leaves his island for meets, he still gets homesick. Perhaps such extroversion goes hand in hand with some innocence. Let’s take it. We don’t get much of it anymore. And it never lasts long. Right now, Bolt is more relaxed, more at ease with his goofy, dancing, nickname-making self — at least in public — than self-protective Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan have been.”

Mark Kriegel, FoxSports.com: “If Speedo is giving Michael Phelps a million dollar bonus, what should NBC be kicking in?”

Jerry Greene, Orlando Sentinel: “Phelps is actually being criticized! Nutrition experts are unhappy because he has agreed to be on the boxes for Corn Flakes and (gasp) Frosted Flakes instead of the traditionally heroic Wheaties. Hey, nutrition experts, relax. It’s better than Phelps promoting a Denny’s breakfast of French toast, pancakes, grits and fried-egg sandwiches, right? They could have called it the ‘Olympic Grand Slam.’”

Rick Chandler, Deadspin: “Two elderly Chinese women who had applied for a permit to protest at the Olympics have finally had their request reviewed by the Beijing police. The verdict? Of course it’s re-education at a labor camp for both. Thanks for writing in! Also, as I understand it, at their hearing one of the women was replaced with a more attractive old lady who lip-synced her defense.”

MEGAPHONE

“Swimming has their LZR suits and their deeper pools. We have a 6-foot-5-inch guy that’s running 9.6s and beating the rest of the Olympic field by two-tenths of a second. He’s our new technology.”

Former Olympic sprinter Ato Boldon, on Bolt.