CINCINNATI, OH -- Review of the footage from Monday night's 10-9 loss to the Cardinals revealed that the loss was, in fact, the fault of the fans.

Close examination of the tape of Graves' delivery of the 1-1 pitch that resulted in a 3-run homerun off the bat of Jim Edmonds clearly showed that the reflection from a spectator's watch face shone directly in Graves' left eye.

More sensitive equipment was needed to identify the cause of the homerun to John Mabry, a fastball that wasn't fast enough. Seen through an ultra-violet filter, the film shows the waves of negative energy wafting off the crowd behind home plate toward the pitching mound. That wave of energy appears to have slowed the fast ball.

“I knew it couldn't have been my fault,” said Graves. Graves, previously thought to have lost the game, will have the loss expunged from his record.

I've never actually been punched in the stomach, but I think I have an idea what it feels like.

Couldn't protect a six-run lead in the ninth to lose 10-9. Time to send someone down for more practice; I recommend Graves.

This entry is cross-posted on Bellyitcher, forum of Cardinals lady-blogger and natural target for my instigation, Bellyscratcher.

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to watching the Cards go down in spectacular fashion tonight. They might be in first for the moment, but there's no way that aging outfield has the stamina for the long haul. “Experience” and “maturity” will soon translate to “old dudes hobbling around trying not to break a hip” for Walker, Edmonds, and Sanders. For their own health and safety, the prudent thing for them to do is trade in the cleats and take up bridge instead.

P.S. - Freel's been seeing a lot of playing time lately, so I hope your boy Nuñez is ready to spend the whole series on his ass in the dirt.

As a general rule, I prefer not to use my blog to bitch and moan about the stuff the Reds do. So when I see a trade, a coaching decision, or a game that is depressing, frustrating, or just plain wrong, I try my best to ignore it and talk about something else. But I'm running out of things to talk about when the game wrap would just be too painful to write. One of these days a Reds' crap-fest will have pushed me over the limit and you'll log on to find that Red Hot Mama will be a Philadelphia Phillies' fan blog. At least with the Phillies I could catch the game on MLB.TV.

When I saw that today's game wasn't going to be televised, I sent my husband to look into MLB.TV as an alternative. It didn't take long, though, to discover that we would not be allowed to see today's game, or any other day's game, online, thanks to the blackout rules. Here's what the MLB.TV technical support page has to say about the blackout rules:

“To protect the rights of broadcasters, certain live games are prevented from being seen in certain markets - this is known as a “black out.” There are two types of MLB.TV blackouts: local blackout and national blackout. For the local blackout, check at the bottom of the MLB.TV page to see if your zip code falls on either team's blackout list. If your zip code is not on the list, you will not be blacked out.”

My zip code is, of course, on the list. I'm not sure, exactly, who is being protected by depriving me of seeing today's game online. It's not televised anywhere at all in this area. All I can figure is that the broadcasters employ some sort of negative energy demon that thrives on my disappointment over missing games, but come on, I'm already watching the Reds: there's plenty of disappointment involved without blacking me out.

At least if it were a home game, you could argue that since I'm in the home market I should up and go to the game in person. In fact, that's what I would do most days if it weren't a 2 1/2 hour drive to the stadium from my house. That's right: I live 120 miles away from Cincinnati and I'm still considered to be in their home market. Sort of gives new meaning to the term “small market team,” don't you think?

So I spend days like today doubly unhappy that my guys just can't seem to pull it together and that I can't even watch them fail. At least it gives me one more day of non-game-related fodder before my fandom heads east.

P.S. OK, that was bleak, but tomorrow ought to be a lot more fun. The Cardinals are way more fun to lose to, plus I plan to bait the heck out of Bellyitcher, so definitely tune in for that.