On Tuesday I made the trek out to Cincinnati to attend Baseball 101: Luncheon for Ladies, so this week I thought I'd use the podcast to share some audio from that event.

It was quite a haul out to Cincy; about two and a half hours, so to get there at 11 with room to recover from the wrong turns I invariably make, I had to be out the door at 8:30. It takes about an hour to get ready, so even though I took Tuesday off work, I absolutely did not get to sleep in satisfactorily.

I had my baseball CDs in the car and enjoyed the stylings of Oh Say Can You Sing? and Finding My Way. In case you didn't already realize the level of my geekitude.

Mulling about with the crowd outside the Diamond Club entrance before the doors opened at 11, it was impossible not to notice how out-of-place I was. First of all, most of the women seemed to be there in groups. Second of all, most of the women seemed to be retired. Experience tells me that the retirement-age women-in-groups crowd can be extremely passionate about their sports, but perhaps next year we can get a bit of a youth movement going to balance it out a little.

Episode 12: Baseball 101. (26.7 MB, 38:56)

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Typical.

The Reds lost to the Philadelphia Phillies yesterday by a score of 8-4.

Elizardo Ramirez earned himself the loss by allowing three runs (two earned) on seven hits and three walks through six plus innings. He struck out seven.

Chris Hammond allowed zero runs on one hit in the seventh. Matt Belise allowed one run (earned) on one hit through one-third. Brian “Ram” Shackelford allowed four runs (all earned) on two hits and three walks through one inning. Rick White gave up zero runs on one hit through the final two-thirds.

The buzz about this game has been that the bullpen let down Ramirez, but I'm still going to indict the offense. The Lizard allowed three runs through six and the offense only scored four. The bullpen would have had to have kept the Phillies scoreless through the final three innings to win this one. A bullpen doesn't have to be bad to allow more than one run to the Phillies over three innings.

Austin Kearns and Edwin Encarnación each hit a solo shot in the bottom of the sixth to provide the sum total of the offense through eight innings. In the ninth, Brandon Phillips walked, Javier Valentín flied out, Scott Hatteberg walked, and Quinton McCracken reached on a fielding error to load up the bases. Felipe Lopez even walked in a run to keep the bases loaded for Ken Griffey, Jr.

Alas, The Kid did not reprise his walk-off performance of the day before. Admittedly, that would have taken a 6-run home run, but I think we all would have been happy with a grand slam. Instead, he grounded out, bringing in Hatteberg. When Kearns struck out swinging, the quasi-rally was over as was the game.

The loss brings the Reds' record to 23-13. They try to avoid losing the series tonight by pitting Dave Williams, proud owner of a 2-2 record, 7.85 ERA against Jon Lieber, equally proud owner of a 2-4 record, 6.60 ERA. Game time 6:10 p.m.

As told by Marc:

Word from Louisville that the Bats have released Rob Stratton to make room for Chris Denorfia on their roster. Good luck, big fella. Sorry we never got to see you up here.

Was there no one in a better position to be released? With all the talk about the Reds' minor league system being so thin, this seems like a strange move.

Speaking of spring training hot shots who got injured just before they could make it big, where's Dewayne Wise these days?

The Cleveland Indians have designated for assignment our old pal Danny Graves (via Marc). He had a 2-1 record and a 5.79 ERA in 13 appearances. Graves allowed runs in four of those 13 appearances. When he gave 'em up, he gave 'em up big time, but he was effective most of the time.

Am I just jaded by the Reds' bullpen, or does that not seem that bad? Comparatively, our current pal Rick White is the owner of a 1-0 record an a 6.19 ERA in 16 appearances. He's allowed runs in seven of his 16 appearances.

Not that I would ever recommend bringing back Graves, but after games like last night's you find yourself thinking crazy things.