By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 24, 2007

With 28 baseball games to go in the history of RFK Stadium, the Washington Nationals are evaluating how to handle their transition into the new ballpark off South Capitol Street next season. One possibility: a few more day games.

Not counting Opening Day -- which drew a crowd of 40,389, the largest at home this year -- the Nationals have played seven weekday or Saturday day games, concluding with Saturday's 3:55 p.m. start against Colorado. Their average for those games is 26,537 tickets sold, better than 3,000 more than their overall average of 23,397, which ranks 26th of 30 major league teams.

"I've certainly noticed," team president Stan Kasten said. "It's something we'll think about in the winter. I would expect we'd have at least as many as we had this year, and possibly one or two more."

The Nationals have averaged 25,944 tickets sold in 16 day games, including Sundays. Attendance has fallen precipitously since the Nationals moved to Washington in 2005, a season in which they drew more than 2.7 million fans, an average of 33,728 per game.

Though starters Mike Bacsik and Tim Redding got most of the credit for the club's back-to-back shutouts of Colorado over the weekend, it is the bullpen that has been stellar for the last several weeks. Nationals relievers have a 1.77 ERA in July, the best in baseball.

"The key for us is just throwing strikes," Chad Cordero said. "That, and keeping the ball down."

Cordero has converted his six July save opportunities and has a 0.90 ERA for the month. Setup man Jon Rauch is 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA in July, while Saul Rivera is 2-0 with a 1.46 ERA in the month. . . .

Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman will host a youth baseball clinic Aug. 2 at Montgomery College's Germantown campus. Proceeds from the signup fee of $250 will benefit the ziMS Foundation, which supports research on multiple sclerosis. Zimmerman's mother has the disease. Registration is available at Marylandbaseballacademy.com.