It was a game so bereft of bright points that FSN included a shot of Wilson walking out to the mound as one of the scenes in the bumper. Big sigh.

Paul Wilson was less than stellar tonight, committing the Reds' first error of the season and then proceeding to get walloped what felt like a million times, though it turned out to be just six earned runs over 5 innings. To me, a 4.50 ERA didn't really sound that great to begin with, but even that's out the window tonight.

The Reds also continued their confounding pattern of giving up hits to the pitcher when Wilson gave up a single to Oswalt in the fifth. What is the deal? It's happened enough already that pitchers shouldn't be able to sneak up on them like that anymore. “Pitch to contact” doesn't mean “contact to pitchers,” guys.

Sean Casey made a fantastic but unsuccessful dive into the dugout after a foul ball. My favorite part of that clip was watching Jason LaRue dive after him. All the parents out there could recognize that dive as exactly the kind of acrobatics you participate in when your 3-year old is a hurtling, Matrix-style toward the concrete, but since Casey's got about 5 inches and 30 pounds on LaRue, it would have been a pretty spectacular catapult four rows into the stands for LaRue if he'd managed to get a hand on Casey.

I was very pleased to see Rich Aurilia get his first RBI of the season. I really want to see Aurilia do well because it would be good for the Reds and because Felipe Lopez strikes me, and I say this with the tenderest of care, as an impetuous punk who needs another year to grow up. The way it's been going for Aurilia and Lopez so far, though, even I am having trouble understanding why they keep playing Aurilia. The only thing I can see it accomplishing is ever-more-deeply entrenching the anti-Auriliites.

Twice in the bottom of the ninth, Astros faltered trying to catch playable foul balls, one at the edge of the stands on the right field side and one behind the plate. These peccadillos would have done a lot more to ease the sting of the 11-2 loss if, in both cases, the batter hadn't come back to immediately strike out.

All-in-all, a performance sadly unfit for my earlier Oscar Meyer Wienermobile sighting. I guess that processed meat products aren't the good omen I always thought they were.

You just know it's going to be a great weekend when on your way home from work you encounter the Wienermobile making its way south on I-69. Go Reds!