So the Cards held a one-run lead through the last few innings, the Brewers keep winning, the Reds pull off another comeback, and the Pirates are still above .500. Every team in the NL Central is above .500 except the atrocious Cubs.
And the Astros.
Oh, wait…
Yeah, and the Brew Crew were 2-8 and have ripped off 8 wins in a row now as well.
I’m going to occupy myself with other stuff and arise from a baseball sleep in three weeks in the hopes the Blue Jays have gotten out of their 25-man-at-a-time slump. Perhaps in the interim they will get rid of Rajai Davis and Emilio Bonifacio. We can only hope.
I’m a bad person but I have reached my saturation point with Red Sox and all of their marathon related tributes. I had to mute when they had some story about Johnny Gomes and his tribute. I don’t need to see David Ortiz and his mouth again either. Let’s get back to baseball. I thought the Newtown trauma whoring was ridiculous and I also muted the kids singing at the Super Bowl.
I’ve been a bit inconsistent, but I’ve used “the lowly Pirates” far more than anything else. However, in an effort to head off a losing streak, perhaps now would be a good time to break out the other usage, and see if the “lowly Pirates” can snap back and give us a win tonight.
That, and Hurdle getting the .280 hitters off the bench in the late innings while sitting the sub-.200 hitters, might help.
Fortunately for the Reds, we get to play the Cubs!
Careful now, you were thinking something similar thoughts when they played the Bucs 
Geez, injuries, injuries, injuries!
Seattle Mariners projected main outfielders:
Michael Saunders (15 day DL, strained shoulder from crashing into the wall)
Michael Morse (day-to-day, fractured pinky from a hit-by-pitch)
Franklin Gutierrez (15-day DL, being Franklin Gutierrez)
So now the Mariners starting outfield is Raul Ibañez, Endy Chavez, and Jason Bay. I guess it could be worse, but we weren’t planning on running those guys out there every day.
Reds and Cubs in extra innings again. I didn’t know this, but apparently the Cubs aren’t quite as bad as people think. Almost all of their losses are by 3 runs or less. So they are just on the cusp but not quite there.
And the goat of last year’s post season is back in a Tiger uniform.
Ladies and Gentlemen of Detroit, I give you Jose Valverde.
And wham, just like that, the Reds lose to the Cubs in extras.
I can only theorize that Valverde possesses pictures of Dombrowski and Leyland doing terrible, terrible things.
I went to the Cards-Nats game last night. Wainwright looked good and Mujica did what they needed him to do. On the other hand, Kozma looked a little goofy trying to go from first to third on a bunt, and there were way, way too many double plays.
BJ and Justin Upton hit home runs on consecutive pitches last night in the Braves-Rockies doubleheader nightcap. It was just the second time in MLB history brothers had gone yard back to back after Paul and Lloyd Waner did it in 1938.
Meanwhile the Braves clubbed 6 homers yestrday, giving them 35 in the first 20 games.
Fun Fact: Justin Upton has 11 homers and 16 RBIs.
4 in the first 5 innings, yeah.
Great to see Wainwright working so hard to justify the big new contract. Hopefully he can keep it up. I’m still not sold on Mujica as the shut-down reliever, but the split-change (or whatever it is) is still fooling hitters for now. Once they all see video and face it I’m wondering if the adjustment will be made.
Anybody want Alfredo Aceves? He blew up again last night, and, as usual, blamed everybody else but himself.
Wat?
Good god, 23 innings!? Let’s play three!
Reds will put together a win-streak. It’s a long season, yadda-yadda. Trite but true.
Just as long as they don’t do it against the Bucs.
In Giants news…Matt Cain is off to the worst start of his career. His curve ball is floating up with a neon blinking “HIT ME” sign.
The magic fairy dust on Vogelsong seems to have fallen off, and Super Timmy Jim-Jam is still wildly erratic (although his last start was great).
But the good news is that Madison Bumgarner has been lights out.
I can’t tell if the Cubs are actually better than their record indicates or if the Reds are one of those teams that struggle with opponents that have bad records…“playing down to the level of competition”, as it were. I’m inclined to believe the former. The Cubs have lost an unreal amount of games by very small margins. Heck, the first game in this series the Reds committed THREE errors in extra innings alone and still managed to win. I can’t imagine how often that happens.