You have no idea how much I covet Tiny Casey. This time, he slays a dragon!

Just heard on FSN from Jim Day that the Reds have put Griffey on the disabled list retroactive to April 13 due to a strain in his right knee.

The move probably corresponds with the return of Jason LaRue from the disabled list after he had his knee scoped just before the start of the season, but I guess they could still surprise us and bring up Chris Denorfia or something.

After the Reds brought up Quinton McCracken to fill in the hole in the outfield, it only makes sense to stop taking up a space with one of them. Too bad they made the Reds play for four days with only 24 players.

Some notes from RHM's crack “hard facts” staff on the upcoming series between the Reds and the Florida Marlins:

Brian Mohler starts game one for the Marlins tonight. On the season he's 0-2 with a 13.50 ERA and has been torched for 12 runs and 15 hits (three HRs) in the 7-1/3 innings he's worked so far this season. Lifetime against the Reds, he's 0-3 with a 7.06 ERA in four starts. He'll oppose Claussen.

On Tuesday the Marlins send Jason Vargas to the mound against Milton. Vargas in 1-1, 5.73 this season, and in his last start, gave up five runs to the Mets in five innings, but in his only career start against the Reds, Vargas was the winner, he's 1-0, 1.42 against the Reds.

Wednesday is the battle of aces as Dontrelle Willis opposes Harang. Willis has put up 1-0, 1.93 so far this season, and is 4-0, 0.97 against the Reds in five career starts.

Who's hot: Josh Winningham (.350, 3 HR, 11 RBI).

Who's not: Moehler, who's put up a BAA of .455 in his previous two starts.

Familiar faces: Former Reds player and manager Tony Perez, who is in the Hall Of Fame (class of 2000), is a special assistant to Marlins president Jeff Loria. He also managed the Marlins in 2001 after John Boles was fired.

Jacci at We Heart the Reds thinks Little Albie is a jerk. Hard to argue with that kind of reasoning.

Shawn at Cincinnati Reds Blog made me laugh with his description of Harang's 1-0 win.

j.p. at Reds (and Blues) has a top ten list of things he thought more likely than a 1-0 win against the Cards.

JD at Red Reporter has some deep thoughts about removing black from the uniforms in favor of navy blue. I don't know why people hate black. It's very slimming.

Matt at The Red Letters is excited overall but doesn't approve of Austin Kearns' plate discipline. I thought Kearns handled a few high pressure spots in this series very well. It's possible that he's striking out on strikes.

Bill at Redleg Nation saves me the effort of reading the Enquirer by linking to a story about Dunn and Griffey ranking low in defense according to a new book. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

Marc Lancaster reports that LaRue is being sent to Louisville after already putting in three games in Sarasota plus one extended spring training appearnce. Honestly, what's the deal? Is LaRue slow to get back into things, or are they jerking him around?

JinAZ wrote about Scott Hatteberg without me. I know I said it was OK, but I guess I just didn't expect it to hurt like this.

Daedalus provides a few really disturbing photoshops. Yikes.

The Big Red Mechanic goes on the first big rant I've read of the year. It took all the way until the tenth game. This could be quite a year

Just after midnight on a young Monday morning, and I have just gotten home. The weekend trip to meet up with Bellyscratcher in St. Louis to smack a couple games in person and drink obscene amounts of beer was a huge success.

A lightening storm on the trip home had us driving 40 mph for a good chunk of Illinois, but I'm just glad to have made it back without incident. On the drive, I saw more than one car's hazard lights blinking morosely at a wholly inappropriate angle from the roadside ditch.

I hope that the Easter bunny was good to everyone. I see that he's left me eggs filled with comments about such things as Sean Casey's fractured back and why Little Eddie ought to be allowed to knock the team out of contention in the name of player development. I can hardly wait to enjoy their gooey goodness.

I've got something like six hours of audio smack talk for my crack technical staff to skim through and try to assemble a respectable podcast or two. It might take a couple days, but I think it'll be worth the wait.

I don't want to spoil it for you, but I will tell you that Ms. Scratcher is cuter'n hell, even sassier in person than on-line, and as good a host as you could possibly ask for. I think you'll enjoy our in-game conversations, despite the fact that they were losing efforts for the Reds.

Tomorrow it's on to the Marlins. As close at the Reds came to taking today's game from the Cardinals, I think there's real hope. Consider: St. Louis had to wring multiple home runs from Pujols to beat the Reds by one. That's like the United States whipping out the nuclear weapons to subdue Grand Fenwick.

And with that, I'll try to grab a few hours' sleep before it's time to go to work. But not before cracking a couple of those comments in my Easter basket. I just can't resist.