Well, damn.

So, the Reds are out of the postseason after just three games. The Phillies put a good foot forward, but the Cincinnati team did their part as well with five errors in the series and not many hits going around. Joey Votto and Scott Rolen’s lack of offense were particularly noticeable. Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce did bring a couple homers in the second game, but even those weren’t enough. The other two games were shutouts. One of them is the no-hitter that’s been so over-talked-about that I’m ready to puke.

There’s been something I’ve had on my mind since September, but I didn’t want to talk about it until after the appearance was over, instead wanting to let myself be entirely swept up in the optimism and excitement. Basically, I was sure I was ready, as a fan, to see the Reds go all the way.

Part of it is that I haven’t been able to commit myself to the team the way I wanted to this season, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the winning as much when I’d been only 80% in the game myself. That’s the selfish reason.

The other is my delayed-gratification reason: it’s like the first time you hold hand with someone when you’re a kid, and how tingly and worked up you get over it, but later when you’ve worked your way up to doing things that are described in baseball terms, that hand-holding doesn’t elicit any response at all. You get more net enjoyment out of slowly building up to it.

So, to use a seriously confusing metaphor, it’s like we’re at first base with Winning Reds this year. Next season maybe we’ll let them get all the way to third. If they don’t make it further than that, we’ll be even more primed for 2012. It’s totally tantric.

Of course, knowing that doesn’t make you want to stop while you’re in the middle of it in either situation.

It’s all moot now in any event, and I’ll be finishing up my damn degree next year and be able to get into the game 100% again. Even so, I did enjoy the hand-holding while it lasted.

As we know from every three-game series, it’s hard to win three games in a row. As we also know from the regular series, this team doesn’t have errors in most games, let alone multiple errors.

Line-Up tonight:

• Stubbs, CF
• Phillips, 2B
• Votto, 1B
• Rolen, 3B
• Gomes, LF
• Hernandez, C
• Bruce, RF
• Cabrera, SS
• Cueto, P

Sucks to be Paul Janish and scratched at the last minute when Cabrera magically turned out to be OK. Whether he’s really recovered enough to be playing in game three, we’re soon to find out. Whether he was ever really the top choice for the position is a discussion for another time.

Go Reds!