Watching the Reds play the Diamondbacks feels to me like the philosophical battle of Adam Dunn versus Dusty Baker. Dunn, stoically accepting ball four, while Baker twitches in the dugout, muttering about clogged basepaths.

So when the Reds loaded the bases in the ninth, I was torn. “What will winning accomplish?” I thought.

But then Jerry Hairston, Jr. struck out swinging to lose by one, and the question was made moot.

Good to see Dunn again, though, isn’t it? If you stay up this late.

Boxscore

The Astros continue to play with house money in their improbable charge for the playoffs. What was it? Just last month when the Central was divided into the haves and have nots? Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis all sat in the top three spots, distanced from the bottom half of the division by a double digit lead in games. Not anymore.

Houston has had as improbable and unexpected last few weeks as St. Louis did the beginning of the season. Only, it counts more at the end.

Miguel Tejada was the hero yesterday, belting a grand slam in the 5th inning to deliver Brian Moehler his 11th win on a silver platter.

Houston passed the Cardinals, who lost to the Cubs, for sole possession of 3rd place, and now are tied for second in the National League wild card race with Philadelphia, 4 games behind the Brewers.

It’s shaping up to be an exciting end to the season. Of course, the Pirates and the Reds both have nothing to do with that excitement.

Boxscore

For a time, it didn’t look like even the magic of C. C. Sabathia would prevent the Brewers from being swept at the hands of the lowly Reds and “Sesenta y Uno” (Bronson Arroyo). However, the Reds showed that they are a bad team at heart and the Brewers won a game they really needed.

Cincinnati committed 2 errors, which both lead to runs that ultimately lost the game for the Reds. Good to know that manager Dusty Baker is working on lowering those 107 errors that the team has by preaching good fundamentals.

The Brewers have a 4 game lead in the wild card over both the Phillies and Houston.

Last night around 11:30 p.m., it was thunderstorming in the Indianapolis metro area. As I stood in front of my bathroom sink brushing my teeth, a loud crackling sound emminated from right in front of me. Before I could figure out exactly what it was coming from, there was a resounding POP and a spark the size of a baseball flashed out of the wall outlet, followed by smoke.

Thankfully, the spark was as short-lived as the Reds’ postseason hopes, and nothing ignited. However, it wasn’t until this morning that we began to realize the full impact of our little lightening strike. The garage doors wouldn’t open, the thermostat wouldn’t work, the router was toast, and the satellite wouldn’t boot up.

The Crack Technical Staff was all over the backup router, but the satellite guy won’t be here until Friday afternoon. Why so long? I figure they must think that they’ll save money on shipping their product.

It’s a good opportunity for me to dig into the ol’ mailbag and see what’s in there. Of course, I cleaned out the ol’ mailbag recently, so there isn’t much except a site of Flash games requesting a link exchange. Of course, since the site doesn’t have a blog roll, I’m not sure how that would happen. And since it contains Flash games, I’m not sure why I would want it to. I tell you, spammers just don’t target their messages these days.

OK, enough of that crap. There must be a radio around here somewhere!

Boxscore

One night after jumping all over Cubs closer Kerry Wood, the Reds did the same thing to Brewers closer Salomon Torres. I watched the game and was surprised to see the Reds come back to win. It was fun. Should the team ever get serious about winning and fire Dusty Baker, I could definitely get used to winning ball games.

Unfortunately, that’s the last baseball game I’ll be seeing for a while. Shortly after the game was over, a thunderstorm rolled in. One lightning strike was close enough to send a powerful surge through the house. How powerful? Enough that flames briefly shot out of the GFCI outlet in the bathroom. Oh, and it killed the satellite, too, among other things.

So the last Reds game I’ll see in about a week before the technician arrives was a win. And a fun win. The only downside was that it, like most wins “managed” by Baker, occurred in spite of Baker. There’s a reason they’ve lost so many this year.