Who had their doubts about giving Edinson Volquez the ball in game 1? Not to say that he hasn’t been good, and not to say that the numbers against lefties don’t bear it out (I haven’t actually checked, so I’ll assume they do), only to say that he’s a young fella with no post-season experience and no particular history of keeping cool in the pressure cooker.

If only the team *did* have an older starting pitcher with some post-season experience and the variety of ego that would respond to getting lit up with a shrug and a muttered “well, shit.”

Well, that guy will be going in game two.

Maybe I’m the stupid eternal optimist, but I’m so excited to have gotten to see a post-season game, that I don’t even care that it was some kind of freakin’ historic no-hitter crap. If anything, I’m happy to get that crap out of the way. Not likely to see that kind of performance again, and the Reds might as well double up “working out jitters” with “suffering through Halladay doing his human torch impersonation.” I wouldn’t have minded if someone had lined one back at his head, but you can’t have everything.

I’m seriously looking forward to Friday. Post-season baseball *and* the freedom to have as much beer as I want without worrying about work the next day? That’s living the dream.