Not that I ever had those hopes. Not really.

After a walk-off win thanks to a bottom-of-the-ninth home run from Brandon Phillips last night, the Reds were back to their losing ways tonight as they fell to the Cardinals 4-1. Bronson Arroyo wasn’t that awesome for the Reds, and apparently Chris Carpenter was that awesome for the Cards. No word yet on what he might have complained about before, during, or after the game or what he may or may not have to explain to his son.

Frankly, I checked out emotionally yesterday around the seventh inning. It hardly seems worth hoping these guys will come back from behind (and they’re *always* behind), even when they’ve just done it the night before. I’m not sure whether the team will ride out the rest of the season in fourth place, but at this point it seems more likely than making it to first.

So, here’s a question for you: why the heck aren’t they doing anything about it? There’s practically an entire major-league ready team in Louisville waiting to be traded or fill in for someone who is. At the very least, shouldn’t Baker be feeling some pressure by now? Bad luck, sure, but the time is past to hope that bad luck will go away on its own.

Awful Announcing is running a fun little competition where they’re searching for a new awful announcer’s face to put on their site’s masthead. Up until this point, Joe Morgan had been prominently featured, but now that he’s retired from broadcasting and gone into the business of selling Hondas to Ohioans, they need somebody new.

The first round of 32 has already completed, and I have my personal favorites that I want to see in the finals. Yes, I want to see a fight to the death between the two sons of great baseball announcers who are the opposite of their fathers: Joe Buck versus Thom Brennaman. And Brennaman should win.

Thom beat out some guy named Jon Gruden in the first round. For his next battle, he’ll be going against Jim Gray on Saturday. I know who I’ll be voting for.

Got this email today:

Robinson Cano and Adrian Gonzalez put on a real show on Monday night. Each home run they hit (all the home runs hit actually) raised money for charity and helped get the ball rolling for State Farm’s Go To Bat campaign. Go To Bat encourages people to support their favorite charity – all it takes is a show of support online. Each week for the next 10 weeks, one charity will be chosen to receive $18,000 and one person who went to bat for the organization will be selected by State Farm to receive a pair of tickets to the 2011 World Series.

You can check out Go To Bat at www.statefarm.com/gotobat and find more information on the campaign.

As I mentioned last week, we’ve been watching the Harry Potter series, all the way through, in preparation for the big premier on Friday. And as I witnessed yet another tragically horrid chapter in the life of young Harry, I realized that I watch way too many sad stories in my life, and I’m not even a Cubs fan.

But the Home Run Derby is the antidote, isn’t it? There are no death eaters or blown saves, just a bunch of brutish guys smacking gold-infused baseballs over walls into the hands of cheering fans. It’s the romantic comedy of sports activities.

Here’s the resulting info graphic from MLB.com:

It’s been a rough few weeks for Reds fans, as the ineptitude has built to a crescendo of crapitude. But I’ve got a funny feeling that the Cincinnati Reds’ losing ways are about to go on hiatus for a few days. Four, to be exact.

Hell, I don’t know whether a few days off are going to make a difference for the team, but I’m sure going to enjoy not having to watch CoCo Cordero give up any leads for a few days. I’ll just use the extra time to get some lawn work done, do some jogging, and remember how much fun it was to watch this team in May.