Micah Owings has taken the mound tonight against Haren of the Diamondbacks, and I am out of practice in this game thread writing. It certainly doesn’t help that we’ve been switching back and forth with the season finale of The Biggest Loser (I have a sense that I would have, at some point in the past, have made a comment about not needing to change the channel for that), but I’m afraid I’m just rusty.

At least I’m not coming off the dreaded flu-like symptoms, like Joey Votto is, and who has now come off the field. I hope it’s not swine flu, or rather, H1N1 human influenza, as my son’s little league insisted on calling it when they called off the post-game high-fives to prevent the spread of germs.

The question at the Red Hot Household is how this team isn’t crashing and burning when Dusty Baker is still at the helm. The answer seems to lie in the very good starting pitching, the lack of wily veterans to block the young’uns or, and the small sample size.

OK, quick aside: is it physically possible for Thom Brennaman to be on television or radio for more than 20 seconds without talking about how he doesn’t use Twitter? OK, aside over.

Oh, and Brandon Phillips finally finding his swing doesn’t hurt either. Doesn’t justify him batting clean-up, but it’s still a nice change of pace.

I probably will not last to the end of this game, as dreams of agonizing training to lose 50% of my body weight beckon. But I’ll tune in tomorrow for the first few innings and see if I’ve gotten any of my form back. Hopefully they’ll have a update on Votto by then.