For making my afternoon bearable. At 1:20, just as the twilight zone of corporate America was starting to take over and I was beginning to think that there was no way I was going to survive reading any more SQL, you gave me an application window to station on my second monitor, and through that window you showed me several reasons to throw my arms up in silent jubilation and spin around in my office chair, after carefully checking that no one in my office was watching, of course. I am in your debt.

As you probably gathered from that last overly loquacious paragraph, I was at work through today's game, so I don't have much insight to share, just a few quick random thoughts that I'll bulletize:

• The Gameday identifies Lopez as “Felipe LopezJr.” I assumed that was a screw-up, someone getting overzealous with the Jrs after typing in Griffey's name. But I learned something new today; according to this article, Lopez is, in fact, a junior. Also according to the article, he's doing his name much prouder than his predecessor.
• Edwin Encarnación hit his second home run in the majors. I'll be disappointed if the story of getting the ball back doesn't involve a long, rambling tale of a writing implement. Since it was at Wrigley, I imagine someone just threw it back and I'll be disappointed. But maybe they threw a pencil along with it. A pencil with a long, rambling tale. Hey, I can hope.
• No one's had a three-error game in, like, two whole days, so I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall. Casey's due for some errors, right?

Tomorrow is promising to be just as full of SQL, so I'm glad that there's another Gameday show in store. Of course, I would much prefer to be at an actual game, especially if it was one with one of these upcoming giveaways. The Aurilia doll gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies, but I'll take a plaque commemorating Dunn's strike-out record any day.

Oh yeah: on the bench. Javier Valentín, Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Austin Kearns all contributed RBI tonight, and three of the four were sitting when the Reds were shut out yesterday.

Imagine that.

Bitterness aside about what I didn't get to see yesterday in Cincinnati, tonight's was a great game. Brandon Claussen pitched seven innings and allowed just two hits, which made the game go quickly even though the Reds had scored nine by the time he was done. Brian “Love” Shackleford kept it going when he pitched the eighth and allowed only one hit.

Things started to get ugly when Randy Keisler came in to pitch the ninth and gave up the shutout, allowing four runs on five hits over the course of two outs. Todd Coffey had to sprint in to get the last out, but not before giving up a quick hit to Derrek Lee.

I had just been wondering whom the Reds would send down when Josh Hancock comes off the DL; Keisler made an excellent case for himself tonight.

The big nonstory of the game was the huge shake-up of switching Ryan Freel and Felipe Lopez in the batting order. Hello? That's not a shake-up. Nor did it work particularly well. While Lopez did draw a couple walks, Freel went 0-fer again.

You know what would be a better shake-up for Freel? Now, this is pretty unorthodox, but hear me out here. It's this new-fangled thing called “a day off.” I'm just saying they might give it a try.

Lots of easy, routine stuff in the field, but young Austin Kearns did have a pretty fantastic running catch just a step short of the ivy out in right field. Amazing that this kid just came up from Louisville this year. And he wasn't even listed among the Reds' best prospects. Hard to believe.

With the 9-4 win in Chicago, the Reds make life just a little bit harder for the Cubs and make a whole game's progress on third-to-last in the division. Sounds like the sort of thing they ought to do again tomorrow.

Go Reds!

…but I think that we should worship the sun and moon as powerful gods. And fear them.

Let's hear it for The State! Yeah! Anyone? Hello? No? Moving on, then…

The sun certainly was powerful at today's game. Despite my SPF 30, I'm pretty rosy around the apples of my cheeks, chin, and upper lip. I also have a great, stark line around where my watch goes. And the freckles are, indeed, in full effect. I look like Pipi Longstocking, except that my hair is behooven to the laws of gravity.

It was so hot (generations of midwesterners in my family are spinning in their graves as I admit this) that I was driven to stand in the shade of the concourse to watch parts of the game. I even visited the mister, which was surprisingly cool and refreshing. I had thought it would just make the heat even more sticky and humid.

I wasn't in my seat for a single one of Ortiz's three throws past first base, but I still got quite a show when I was seated. I got to see:

• Ortiz pitch reasonably well, giving up only a single run in the first inning.
• Kearns' fantastic throw home in the third that held the runner at third and didn't require LaRue to move an inch to catch it in the air.
• Wily Mo waving to some girls in the stands who were very excited to get his attention.
• What appeared to be a great rundown between first and second as LaRue charged across the infield grass! He threw to second! Who threw to first with plenty of time! Plenty of time to see the ball pop out of Casey's glove, that is! D'oh!
• Dunn come in as the last batter in the bottom of the ninth to strike out to end the game. What crap; Dunn shouldn't have been sitting to begin with. Listening to 700 WLW after the game, I heard Tracy Jones have a good point: the Reds shouldn't sit Dunn and Griffey on the same day at home because it's a rip-off to the people who came to see them. I might add that it makes the Reds even more likely to lose. Fans get doubly screwed.

And all this with absolutely no stupid, drunk, or loud people sitting anywhere near us. Though there were a couple girls a few rows in front of us who felt the need to roll up their shirts to explose as much of their bellies as possible, and then stand for most of the game. I guess they were trying to show off, but, well, yeah.

On the way home, we stopped for pizza just as at least two other groups of Hoosiers returning from the game also stopped. It was a veritable flood of red-shirts, but the service was very attentive and chipper. Kudos to the Batesville La Rosa's.

P.S. - So we get home and turn on ESPN News just in time to see coverage of the Cardinals getting a freaking walk-off grand slam from David Eckstein. The Cards get a freaking walk-off grand slam from their tiny infielder and we get a freaking strike out from our enormous slugger.

There is truly no justice in the universe. Either that, or Cincinnati has pissed off the sun and moon again.

The little away jersey for American Girl dolls that the Reds were giving away at tonight's game was so darn cute, I considered being one of the first 6,000 people in line. I, however, don't have a girl under 14, and I couldn't bear to be the woman who makes her 4-year old boy claim one of the outfits on behalf of his mom's doll collection.

Still, if any of you is looking to unload an extra, I'd give it a good home. If you could send a doll as well, I'm also short one of those. Thanks a bunch.

My incredibly busy week left me unable to relay in a timely manner a story right up my alley about Griffey taking charge of a 6-year old whose grandfather died of a heart attack in the stands of Great American on Thursday and who had to wait for his mother to come pick him up from an hour away. Kudos to Jr. and all the other guys who contributed to comforting the boy. I would like to think that someone would be so kind to my son in a similar situation.

Returning almost distressingly quickly to significantly less significant matters, this awfully busy week left me unable to watch the Reds play on television, but I finally had tonight free. Typical that tonight's game, and a win no less, wasn't on t.v. I think that it's high time I made it back out for a bona fide trip to the ballpark, don't you?

OK, you convinced me. I'll go tomorrow.

I do hope that the Reds win again tomorrow for my sake, but even if they don't, it can't take away tonight's win now. After what had to be a deflating loss last night, and despite a start from Luke Hudson, the Reds managed to pull together a 3-4 win over the Florida Marlins. Let's use bullets to legitimize the juxtaposition of these unrelated ideas that are, if not actually about, at least in the general vicinity of the game:

• I was hoping that the Marlins would bring up Jason Romano for this series so I could get another look at him, but now that he's been put on the DL, I guess I can stop hoping.
• Ryan Freel is so cold at the plate, you can feel the icy wind coming through the radio. I was hoping that he'd get yesterday and/or today off so he'd be in top form for my visit tomorrow, but I imagine he'll get tomorrow off and I'll be treated to Aurilia at second. yay.
• Ooh, or maybe it'll be Ray Olmedo. I could get behind that.
• Thanks to an apparent total disconnect from sense and the memory of the fact that we have always sat on the right-field side, Jon got us tickets for the left-field side tomorrow. So when I come back tomorrow night and share my impressions of the game, you can also expect a full report on the severity of my sun burn. Or at least the intensity of my freckles which, at their worst, are borderline Dublin street urchin.

But it'll all be worth it when I get to see a real-life game in person. And get my free pack of baseball cards. Maybe I can get Winter to claim an extra pack for me.

CINCINNATI, OH -- Cincinnati Reds reliever Todd Coffey was accosted by his teammates, stripped down, and thoroughly sprayed with a hose for approximately 15 minutes today, all over a misunderstanding.

During spring training and early in the season, several players missed playing time due to flu-like symptoms. When the insidious bug continued to pass from player to player, the Reds had cultures taken of the clubhouse to eliminate environmental factors as the cause. After several delays at the lab, the results came back last night and definitively showed that the clubhouse itself was not to blame.

“In this case, the cause appears to be simple enough: saliva,” explained Dr. Timothy Kremcheck, Reds Medical Director.

Not that the Reds are spitting on each other, but trace amounts of saliva end up in the air, on furniture, and on people when people get together and talk, cough, or sneeze.

“It's normal for small amount of other people's saliva to end up on you,” said Kremcheck, “but it can spread disease. That's why hand washing is so important, and that's what I told the guys.”

So how did a brief lecture on hand-washing get Todd Coffey sprayed down with a hose?

“I told them when anyone coughs in the clubhouse that thorough scrubbing of the cough-er as well as the cough-ee is important,” said Kremcheck. “They just misunderstood.”

Coffey is reported to be slightly embarrassed but squeaky clean. Despite some residual redness, Coffey is available to pitch immediately.