As much of a goofy, goody-two-shoes, Jim-Edmonds-lover as he is, George Grande has always been a favorite broadcaster of mine, so I was psyched to have gotten this message in my email inbox:

Grande will be calling play-by-play alongside analyst Chris Welsh for the Cincinnati Reds-Milwaukee Brewers series next Monday, April 25 through Wednesday, April 27th.

Monday’s game in Milwaukee begins at 8pm. Tune in to Reds Live pregame show at 7:30pm and visit www.foxsportsohio.com for additional coverage.

Hopefully my class will get out early on Monday so that I can get as much of my George Grande fix as possible, but if not, I’ll be spending some extra time with the Georginator 6000 XL.

Boxscore

A day after the St. Louis Cardinals cheated themselves to an early advantage, the Cincinnati Reds finally got their bearings back and put away the Redbirds.

Things started very well, with Reds’ starter Travis Wood pitching a scoreless first inning. Let me repeat that. A Reds starter pitched a scoreless first inning. While it might seem a mundane thing, it’s something that hadn’t happened for 6 or seven games. Wood did allow runs in the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th, but he did turn in a quality start.

Chris Carpenter started for the Cardinals and was wild in the first, but managed to escape unscathed. The Reds continued to have solid at-bats against him, working up his pitch count. He left after 6 innings having thrown 103 pitches and allowed a couple of runs.

Those 2 runs for the Reds came when they were down 2-0 in the 6th. Joey Votto came to the plate with a runner on and deposited a 3-0 pitch over the outfield wall. That’s what an MVP does right there.

The Reds promptly gave up the lead in the bottom of the 6th, but their attitude seemed less defeated than before. RHM turned to me during the rain delay and said, “They’re going to win this one.”

And they did, thanks to the Cardinals’ crappy defense and Ryan Franklin. In the 8th, Miguel Batista was pitching. Drew Stubbs reached on an error, Brandon Phillips struck out, Joey Votto was intentionally walked, and Jonny Gomes was hit by a pitch. Trever Miller was brought in to face Jay Bruce, but Bruce worked a walk that brought in the tying run. Then the Cardinals turned to their former closer, Franklin, who promptly gave up a two-run single to Miguel Cairo.

That was enough for the Reds. Francisco Cordero came in for the Reds in the 9th and pitched a perfect inning for his 3rd save.

The Reds and Cardinals will play tomorrow night to see who wins the series. We’ll see if the Cardinals can go another game without cheating.

A couple days ago, Cincinnati Reds starter Mike Leake was arrested for shop-lifting. Today, there was a report from Cincinnati’s WCPO Channel 9 that Leake had paid for the shirts.

The report is written oddly, like that of a middle-schooler trying to write a paper and sound impressive by using a thesaurus for every mundane word. For instance, the article starts by stating, “delicate negotiations will be undertaken shortly to hopefully remedy the Mike Leake imbroglio to everyone’s satisfaction.” Okay. I’m sure that couldn’t have been worded in an easier to read manner.

But getting past that, here’s the meat of the story.

A reliable source tells me that Leake did indeed pay for T-shirts some time prior to yesterday’s episode. And only in the process of clumsily trying to exchange them, did he run afoul of, if not the law, then certainly the dictates of common sense.

That Leake somehow thought that he could affect what is termed an “even exchange” without benefit of a store employee presiding over the transaction.

So this source is saying that Leake previously paid for the shirts and walked in the store later to exchange them without talking to a store employee. It sounds ridiculous, but given that this is a world where a diner can sue a restaurant after eating an artichoke, it’s certainly possible. But if true, what a dummy Leake is.