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In his 53 previous outings, Lannan has 33 quality starts under his belt, that's 62.3 percent of the time, which ranks 16th among active pitchers in the majors with a minimum of 50 starts.

Manager Manny Acta spoke about the importance of having Lannan on the hill every fifth day.

"He's a guy that might have one or two bad outings, but consistency is the word for him," Acta said. "We haven't seen him go four, five or six bad outing where anybody is going to raise doubt about his ability. We look forward every five days when he's going to pitch, because we know that he's going to give us a good effort and keep us in the game."

When asked if he considers Lannan an ace, he's not so quick to put that label on the 24-year old lefty.

"I don't use that word with this guy. I don't think we have an ace. [Roy] Halladay is an ace, those guys are the aces. He's the stabilizer of our staff."

Could he be possibly become an ace somewhere down the road?

"Not in the future. I still think John is going to be very good pitcher, middle of the rotation on a winning ball club."

I asked Acta if he felt Lannan could be the Nationals representative at the All-Star game in St. Louis on July 14th

"It'll be tough because they only pick so many starters and those guys [Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain] in San Francisco. San Francisco has a chance to have two guys in there and it will be tough. It would be nice if he could go"

Even if Lannan doesn't make the All-Star game this season or never makes it in his career, he has left his mark on the Nationals manager.

"He's a big league pitcher. Being a human being, he's going to struggle here and there, but he's a big league pitcher no doubt. This is no fluke what so ever what he's done. He keeps learning and he's taken a little bit more of a role of trying to help out the younger guys even when they are pretty much his own age because of his big league experience. He's not a kept secret any more here. The rest of the league knows that this guy is here to stay."