Little did Ryan Freel know when he dove for that ball that the image captured in that moment would be the perfect visual representation of the Reds' play of late.

Sounds a little ridiculous, I realize, seeing as the Reds are up 2-1 as I write this. Of course, having Andy Pettitte out of the game helps. Marc says he's attending to his father in the hospital. He also says that the last-minute pitching change for the Astros caused Reds' manager Jerry Narron to scratch his plan to play Rich Aurilia at first base and Royce Clatyon at short in favor of moving Aurilia to short and Scott Hatteberg to first. So you see, the situation worked out for the best. Except for the father in the hospital part. Hope he's doing OK.

Speaking of sick, my own kid came down sick tonight, very suddenly in the backseat of the car on the way home. He's sleeping upstairs now, where I had been resting with him until just recently, the reason being for why I'm just now catching up on the whole Chris Denorfia hitting a home run thing. Go Dino!

Oh, now Marc's saying that Brandon Phillips was taken to the hospital for precautionary tests after being hit in the eye with a ball that took a bad hop. Yikes. Hope he's doing OK, too.

With all this talk of hospitalization, I'd best go check on my kid. Keep it up, Reds. A win would be a nice change of pace.