Holey samoley, what a great night for Wily Mo Peña and for any fans out there who's capacity for enjoyment of this sport hasn't been completed crusted over with the jadedness of repeatedly watching your team start to put something together, only to drop it and scatter the pieces all over the place.

Eric Milton looked like he was starting to put something together on the mound. He made it through four innings giving up only one run. But he dropped it in the fifth when he gave up six runs, including the grand slam to Eduardo Perez. Shards of a quality start flew everywhere.

Nevertheless, the Reds proved that it is actually possible to win a start by Milton when their own homerun hitters turned out for a change. Tonight they were:

• Joe Randa in the third. Jon's excited because Randa's improving his trade value. I'm not yet excited about the idea of trading Randa.
• Jason LaRue in the seventh. The game wasn't on t.v. here, but I could just imagine the scene on a hot Ohio night. No one in the league wears perspiration better.
• Adam Dunn in the eighth. (“Oh, that's how it's done. I get it now.”)
• Jacob Cruz in the eighth. I was relieved they didn't pinch run for him this time.
• Wily Mo sandwiched them all with one in the second and the walk-off in the ninth. And all on his bobblehead night.

Let's hope those guys show up again tomorrow as we watch Luke Hudson make his first attempt of 2005 and see if he can't help do something to rid us of some of this jadedness.

Go Reds!

Randy Keisler was the star of tonight's game after he came into the game in the second inning to relieve the struggling Ramón Ortiz. Keisler lasted through the eighth inning, allowing one run on two hits, as well as sparking the offense when he hit the first homerun of his career in the bottom of the third inning.

After the hit, Keisler reportedly returned to the dugout, sat down next to Ken Griffey, Jr. and said, “See? That's how it's done.” Griffey was taken aback but went on to hit a homerun in the fourth inning.

Hoping for similar success after a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning, Sean Casey sat down next to Adam Dunn and said the same thing: “See? That's how it's done.”

Dunn responded, “That's how it's me?” and spent the rest of the game confused.

Hancock Ready for Action
Josh Hancock played for the Louisville Bats in a rehab start tonight. He allowed 10 runs on 15 hits and a walk through 4 and 1/3 innings.

“Sounds like a genuine Reds starter to me,” said pitching coach Don Gullet.

Hancock is scheduled to start with the Reds in place of Aaron Harang against Tampa Bay on Thursday.

Freel Skips the Razor
Utility-man Ryan Freel made his first start in three games tonight with markedly more hair than he's had all season.

“Kearnsy and Wily Mo have been trying to get me on their hair stuff for months,” said Freel. “Besides, I hear some of my biggest fans actually liked the unruly curls.”

Reds Draft Goes Young
The Reds drafted local tee-ball hero Winter Mama in the second round of today's amateur draft. Mama led his team, the Cookie Monster Crawlers, to the Diaper League championship in 2004. Minor league director Tim Naehring calls Mama a “great natural both-y” since he still uses both hands to throw the ball.

“Weird name, though,” said Naehring. “He must have a hippy chick for a mother or something.”

If today ended right now, Red Hot Mama would have received the fewest hits since May 8, the first day of my conference in Seattle, and less than a fifth as many hits as May 31, her most popular day so far. I guess you guys must feel like reading about this team about as much as I feel like writing about it.

Today's game was yet another losing effort for the Reds who have now officially been swept off their feet. By the Rockies. This brings us to five losses in a row and a road record of 3 and about 200.

You can argue about whether the kick-in-the-pants that was the dropping of Danny Graves is the reason why we're seeing significantly improved performance from our pitching staff, but there's no way to argue that it's helped the offense in the long-term. The Reds stranded 11 runners on Friday, 10 Saturday, and 10 today in a phenomenal display of, well, what's the opposite of “clutch hitting”?

It's beginning to look like a change in management is likely. I would say “inevitable” if there were any obvious choice of who could come next, but maybe I should be saying it anyway. Either way, I really wanted the story of Miley to work out better than this, and when he does go, I'll miss his constant nervous blinking that always belied the axiety, jublication, or rage that he kept so neatly tucked inside.

Tomorrow's an off-day, but I'd be surprised not to have any material for an entry. I doubt I'll be very happy about the increase in hits.

Not the kind that sends Miley back to AAA, just tidying up here at RHM. I'm expecting guests this weekend, and I'd hate for them to have to see my dirty laundry and copies of Redbook lying around everywhere.

My crack technical support staff has added links to The Cutting Edge and CardNilly and removed the link to Popo's Blog after almost two weeks of inactivity over there. Too bad; it really was a great name for a blog.

Also, we've been having some problems with spam links showing up in the comments of old entries, so my crack technical support staff has begun the process of disabling comments on old entries. That might just make for more spam comments on the newer entries, but at least they'd be easier for me to find and delete.

And that's all I've got for the evening. I would like to provide something amusing to get rid of some of that bad taste left by tonight's performance in Colorado, but I was suddenly hit with flu-like symptoms in the bottom of the sixth, and I haven't got anything left. It was so bad that I couldn't even stomach red wine, which is really a shame considering how much I could have used a drink about then.

So I'll just collect these socks I left on the floor and go get rested up. Need to shake this bug ASAP in case I really need a drink during tomorrow's game.