Reds Still Feel Pretty Good About Their Lead, 6 Games with 12 Left, A-holes 4-3

The picture to the right, which Google was nice enough to provide, needs no explanation but I will attempt to provide one anyway. It is the first stack of pancakes to travel to, what appears to be Mars. Mars' is further from the sun, so that explains why the butter hasn't quite melted yet. The relevance of the photo is that yesterday the Reds wrapped up a series loss to a bunch of pancake astronauts.

The Reds were Wandied on Friday before they went buck wild on Saturday, dropping 11 runs on Astros pitching. Actually, now that I think about it, the team came back against Wandy, on a Gomes three-run bomb, but then Cueto allowed the tying run before his exit in the 6th and the Astronauts treated Chapman with much disrespect. They didn't even let him record an out, 3 hits and a walk and that was the difference. The Saturday victory provided Bronson Arroyo with enough run support to win his career high 16th game. He must have thought that there was no way that he'd ever win more than 15, having done it three times. And he'll have three more chances to add to that total. Then yesterday, the Reds had lots of chances against Brett Myers and his billy-goat beard but didn't capitalize. Wood allowed 3, 2 earned and struck out 5 over 6 and took home the loss. Boom, outta here. Votto was up with two on the 9th, but, somehow, Brandon Lyon, who is, to quote my favorite nerds, a replacement level pitcher, got Joey to pop out to shallow short. Votto had already picked up three hits in the game, so he was likely tired from all of that swinging.

The Cardinals took 2 of 3 from San Diego, who looks like they wouldn't mind letting the Rockies pass them for second place in the west, so the magic number stays at 8. Still, I think the Reds can muster 4 wins in the last 12 and I'm certain the Cardinals can manage 4 losses. The 4 wins start today versus Milwaukee. The Brewers are cool, they don't want to complicate things.