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Belated happy holidays and all that! Thanks to work and the rabbit I now have 4 games on which to catch you up (how strange, in order to avoid ending the sentence in a preposition, I rearranged it so that it ended in another preposition. Of course, to avoid it all together I'd have to have said something like "up on which to catch you," and that just sounds dumb). Seeing as that would take forever to do well, I'll do it short and crappy.

Game the first was the first of the series with the Pirates. Also a game my evil mother attended without me. Let it be known that I actually love my mother and do not think she is evil, but she never even asked if I wanted to go and now I am bitter. Though the cold was also bitter, the Reds won convincingly, by a score of 6 to 1. Matt Belisle pitched and did a bang up job, becoming the fourth pitcher in a row for the Reds to make it through at least 6 innings, which I think is pretty darn nifty. He also held the Pirates to just 1 run. Mom would also like you to know that she put her hot dog wrapper in her pocket rather than let if drift onto the field because she is a concerned citizen and fan and also because there were apparently no trash cans nearby. This is a situation I plan to look into next time I'm at Great American. I cannot recall ever seeing trash cans inside the park. That could be because the trash is not high on my list of Things I'm Excited to See. Or maybe there really aren't any. The investigation begins.

The second game was also against the Pirates (imagine that!). In order to avoid frostbite, the game was moved to 1:00 in the afternoon. Even with the short rest and the bitter cold the Reds came out on top once again, giving Harang his 2nd win of the year with a score of 7-5. Adam Dunn hit his 3rd home run of the season and also stole 2 bases. Jon Coutlangus's major league debut was rather successful, giving up no hits and striking out one in his 0.2 innings.

I pretty much missed Sunday's game due to family time. I played ImaginIff, Spoons and Shoot My Cousins with Foam Airplanes while the Reds were losing for the 2nd time this season. Eric Milton was the pitcher and earner of the big, ugly L. The defeat was pretty crushing, 6-3. The bullpen gave up more than 0 runs for the first time this season, with Coffey and Coutlangus both giving up solo homers. I was able to stop by the TV long enough to see both.

Tonight's game was in Arizona where it is much warmer. It always seems that the Reds have a hard time with the Diamondbacks, and so it was again today. Cincinnati's new away uniforms look a lot like the Phillie's, but I like them still. The D-backs also look different this year, sporting a surprising amount of red. Surprising to me, anyway. While I struggled through an evening of controling high school kids, Bronson Arroyo was working his way through 4 innings of no-hit baseball. The Snakes struck back, though, and took the lead in the 8th. I jumped in my car and turned on the radio in time for the top of the 9th, during which Josh Hamilton walked, making it on base for the first time this season (I think). Hatteberg's double play eliminated them both. Javy got on base with a single just before Phillips ended the game on a fly ball out, giving the Reds loss number 3.

The standings page is all kinds of messed up right now, but I believe Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are still tied for first in the division, both with a record of 4-3.