Boxscore

Going into Thursday, the Cincinnati Reds were tied with the St. Louis Cardinals for first place of the National League Central. Thanks to the New York Mets and a great outing by knuckle-baller R.A. Dickey, the Reds are back in first.

A day after their extra-inning affair, the Cardinals’ offense played tired. They managed 4 hits and no runs. Albert Pujols played, despite being gimpy, and contributed nothing in what is shaping up to be the worst year of his career. (Of course, the vast majority of players would kill to have a year as “crappy” as Pujols is having. It’s nice having Joey Votto on the Reds.)

Blake Hawksworth wasn’t very good again in his start for St. Louis, getting his 7th loss. Over 6 innings, he allowed 4 runs on 7 hits, 3 walks, and 3 strikeouts.

After storming out of the break with a 7-game winning streak, the Cardinals have now lost 2 series in a row.

Daniel Ray Herrera, the diminutive left handed reliever that the Reds have on assignment down in AAA Louisville right now, was arrested last night for public intoxication. From WLKY.com:

Police said Herrera, 25, was walking along northbound US 31 when he was stopped by Indiana State Police at 4:18 a.m.

ISP arrested Herrera and charged him with public intoxication. When he arrived at the Clark County Jail, his blood alcohol level tested at 0.228.

Herrera is due to be released from the Clark County Jail at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

It’s been a while since anyone in the Cincinnati has been in trouble with the law. Didn’t used to be that way. I remember Brian Shackelford’s arrest on a Milwaukee road trip, and of course, Ryan Freel gave us not one, but two mug shots. Comparatively, wandering up the highway in the wee morning hours seems only LaRussa-esque.

A few things that have been stacking up in my inbox, just waiting for a night when I’m too tired to write anything of my own. Thank you, other bloggers, for sharing!

Prospect Interview
Bus League Baseball interviews Blue Jays’ prospect Zach Stewart. If you’re like me, you have no recollection of who that is, and since the Reds aren’t mentioned in the story, reading it would be interesting but not helpful in making the connection. Fortunately, Brian, the author, reminded me that he was among the players the Reds traded for Scott Rolen.

Past Glory Meets Current Nerdiness
Remember the pretend 1977 Reds team I was “managing” this season? And, by managing, I mean seeing some of the best players of the era get screwed over by unlucky rolls of the dice and losing interest in the whole thing. Well, apparently the dice have been in their favor lately, and they’ve been on a bit of a tear. Check out the write-up, if you’re as interested in imaginary past glory as the current real-life glory of the team right now.

Around the Sphere
Not that I have nearly the time to read other blogs that I want to have, but I did take a moment to check out Reds Country and was well impressed. I hope you have an little time to give it a look. I also has an email from back in March announcing another baseball blog, but I spared you that one, because my standards for the blogs I’ll link to are rigorous: 1) you must know how to use paragraphs, and 2) you must post more than once ever.

Call for our Prospectus
Moving on to the sort of crap only a baseball fan MBA could come up with (ahem), SeatGeek.com is a “website that forecasts how sports and concert ticket prices move on the secondary ticket market.” This may be as good a market to invest your retirement fund in as any. Read the report, but remember that every opportunity has risks.

Else
And that’s about everything in the inbox, except for a book excerpt I’ve been meaning to look at for four months, SEVERAL poorly punctuated messages from PayPal to let me know that my account has been locked and that I need to fill out an attached form with all my personal information in order to access it again, and a surprising number of Canadian pharmacies want to sell me Viagra. How did they even know I was in the market?

Earlier this month, Sports Illustrated published the results of a player poll in which Gary Matthews Jr. was voted among the most overrated players in the league.

I’m not sure whether this was the same poll that voted Joey Votto the MVP for the first half of the season, but at least this Gary Matthews Jr thing the Reds agreed with. They had given the guy a minor league contract with an opt-out provision for him if he wasn’t called up by Saturday.

But whom would they have taken off the active roster for him? Jonny Gomes ain’t goin’ nowhere. Jay Bruce, Laynce Nix, and Chris Heisey have made themselves welcome characters on the Cincinnati stage. Even Drew Stubbs–who hasn’t exactly been outperforming Mr. Matthews so far–has enough potential in the possibility he’ll learn to lay down a bunt for a base hit to hold onto his roster spot over the overrated Matthews.

So, as of Saturday, Matthews opted out of the contract with the Reds organization and is now available to be hired by a team near you. Surely someone needs an outfielder. The Yankees are always hiring overrated players; maybe they’ll be able to hook up.

The first 30,000 people through the gates this Saturday, July 31 to see the Reds take on the Atlanta Braves will take home this lovely Homer Bailey bobblehead, or, at least, will have the opportunity to sell it to some guy with a big bag who wanders around offering up $10 or something.

In case you haven’t been watching the television broadcast for the last two weeks to hear them say it 30,000 times, the game start time has been changed. Even if you have your tickets in hand and see a different time on them, know that this game starts at 4:10 p.m. If you want to be among the first 30,000, you’ll want to be heading over there shortly after lunch.