"Ninety-eight pitches into his afternoon, Scott Olsen stood on the pitcher's mound, watching everybody converge on him like some claw closing its fist. The infielders joined by his side, the full sayonara conference, and there came Washington Nationals Manager Manny Acta, out of the dugout, past the first base line, ready to pluck the ball from his pitcher's hand and pass it along to somebody else.

"I thought I was done," Olsen said.

Viewed from above, the ensuing meeting took Olsen's toughness quotient to a new level and provided the galvanizing moment in Washington's 5-3 victory against the Atlanta Braves. The claw of humanity came in for the swipe, and Olsen was still there, defiant, dead-set on finishing his own game. Acta walked back to the dugout. The pitcher, still on the mound, had his Maximus moment. Nationals Park roared. Like that, Olsen -- the stepbrother in Washington's homegrown rotation -- had won the crowd.

"When Manny walked off the mound in the eighth," Olsen said, "I heard 'em."

Let's note this much: The onlookers were duped. This was no stand-down. Olsen was just listening to orders, and Acta, all along, intended the meeting only to rally Olsen, to remind him to shake off those back-to-back walks and record the eighth inning's final out.

Either way, though, Olsen's afternoon -- and his reception -- benefited. He ended up grinding through that jam and going 8 2/3 innings, an effort that created the latest, strangest bend in Washington's season. Suddenly, this 25-year-old left-hander, beaten by all comers in his first eight starts this year, among the worst starters in the National League in April and May, all but discarded and forgotten as a crop of shiny rookies invaded the rotation, has somehow returned from injury to look like the exact pitcher Washington always hoped for. Now, Olsen is throwing harder, pushing deeper into games, and reestablishing himself as (perhaps) a component of the organization's future. It's only been two games, so keep the champagne corks screwed tight, but since coming off the disabled list, Olsen is 1-0 with a 2.87 ERA (15 2/3 IP, five earned runs). He is, in short, a different pitcher.

And a healthy one. Olsen spent much of June on the disabled list, dealing with and recovering from left shoulder tendinitis. Though he didn't speak about an injury during the earlier part of the season, Olsen hinted yesterday that his arm hurt well before he took a break.

"Yeah, I just didn't feel very good overall," Olsen said. "That's pretty much as far into detail with that as I'm going to go." "