The St. Louis Cardinals, as many of you know, made it past the Philadelphia Phillies, despite being an inferior club. My feelings on this are largely frustration at the missed opportunity by the Cincinnati Reds and embarrassment by the General Manager who refused to do anything. The Reds should have done what the Cardinals did, and that sucks.

But this next playoff series is clear. The good guys are the Brewers, and the bad guys are the Cardinals. And the Brewers dislike the Cardinals as much as the Reds do.

Speaking to reporters at Miller Park on Saturday, [Zack] Greinke said some of his Brewers teammates don’t like Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter when he shouts at batters from the mound.

“They think his presence, his attitude out there sometimes is like a phony attitude,” Greinke said. “And then he yells at people. He just stares people down and stuff. And most pitchers just don’t do that. And when guys do, I guess some hitters get mad. Some hitters do it to pitchers. But when you do that some people will get mad.

“There’s other pitchers in the league that do it, but, I don’t know,” Greinke said, “a lot of guys on our team don’t like Carpenter.”

Amen. And for a primer on the dislike between the two clubs and the whining the Brewers have received from the Cardinals, I recommend this primer.

From complaints of scoreboards in the stadium to benches emptying altercations, there’s some similarity between the Brewers-Cardinals this year and the Reds-Cardinals last year. Given that there’s only one constant, it makes it easy to root for the Brewers to knock out the Cardinals.

Boxscore

Saturday night’s game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Milwaukee Brewers was unfortunately a bit of a snoozer. The Reds lost 10-1, with the only offense being a solo shot from Yonder Alonso.

The game was fun, though, despite that, with some great tweeting going on via all the Reds Tweetup guests. You can view the tweets here.

Before the event was also the unveiling of the new Johnny Bench statue. Bench spoke to the crowd before the game.

After that, Edinson Volquez took to the mound. He started well, but was probably left in too long and fell apart in the 7th. (No thanks to his bullpen, who allowed all inherited runners to score.)

The Reds’ batters had no luck either, aside from Alonso. The heart of the lineup was quiet, with Joey Votto and Jay Bruce combining for zero hits.

Yovani Gallardo was on his game for the Brewers, and the game was effectively over when Volquez and the bullpen imploded.

Volquez got the loss and Gallardo took the victory. It was a far cry from last September’s Tweetup, when the Reds clinched the division. And from the last Johnny Bench night, when Bench homered to lead the Reds to a win. Sadly, there were no fireworks from Reds catchers tonight.

Still, it was a fun event, and I’m looking forward to next year’s.

Over the 2011 Memorial Day weekend, we visited Wisconsin for a Milwaukee Brewers game. Of course, there was a sausage race.

And what better time to share the video than during the 2011 All Star game?

The winning sausage prompted our son to grab as many items pertaining to that sausage from the gift shop as he could find, including a fridge magnet and a t-shirt. I think he’s still a Cincinnati Reds fan, though.

Over Memorial Day weekend, we took a family trip up to Milwaukee for our first visit to Miller Park. You can see a panoramic shot from our upper deck seats above. We didn’t explore the park much. Thanks to a weekend lugging around our 10 year-old and his cousin, we were a bit exhausted.

The park was nice, but it left me feeling the same way as I did at the Houston Astros’ Minute Maid Park: oddly disconcerted. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but something feels off. I’m guessing it’s that the stadiums are built with retractable roofs, and thus are fully enclosed. It doesn’t feel right to play baseball indoors.

I do look forward to going back sometime, though. Next time, maybe we’ll be resting at the hotel instead of during the baseball game.

Boxscore

Well, it’s nice to see that the Cincinnati Reds can still take a series from the Milwaukee Brewers.

This time, the win wasn’t nearly so dominating, requiring late-game heroics from Joey Votto and Jay Bruce. But they came through, each with their own 2-run homer. Votto’s was the one that gave them the lead.

And then Francisco Cordero came on for his 300th career save.

The game started off shakily, with starter Mike Leake giving up yet another home run to start the game. That makes it sound like it’s been Leake doing all of that for the Reds this year, but I know Volquez has done that at least twice. That first inning continues to be a problem.

But the offense came back and the Reds have some hope as they enter their first off-day in 20 days. And I grouse a bit when I have to work late every so often. At least I get weekends off.