Eight game losing streak… That’s a lot of Ls to string together. Signs of life last night, though.

I blame Cardnilly, who’s apparently given up on the team. Without his series previews, the team comes in unprepared. I’ll make a vain effort to fill in until he recovers heart, or at least today.

Anthony Reyes (.100/.095/.250 20AB) vs. Ben Sheets (.245/.285/.413 200AB)

Dan has to pitching formula for Reyes—mow ‘em down instead of pitching for grounders. Not a bad stratgery, seeing as these Brewers sport the lineup that’s struck out 2nd most in the NL after the Marlins. They ground into double plays third most, so he might be wise to keep the sinking fastball in the mix and sharp, lest they sit on it with runners on first. The only Brewer to have any success against Reyes in his one game against the Brewers was Bill Hall, who went 2-3 with a home run. Batting behind Hall will be Geoff Jenkins, who’s grounded into 9 double plays this year. If Reyes looks sharp, he should be able to afford pitching carefully to Hall.

The Brewers send to the mound their ace, Ben Sheets, who hopes to extend the Cardinals losing streak to 9 games. Since returning from the disabled list, Sheets has pitched brilliantly. He went seven innings in his first game back, leaving a 1-1 tied game that Dave Bush let turn into a 6-1 blow-up in the eighth. In his second game, he burned the Reds with 10 strikeouts on 1 walk, 7 hits, and 2 ER over 8 innings for the win. In his past fifteen innings, he’s struck out 15 and walked 1. He’s looking good. Albert Pujols (.388/.412/.653) and David Eckstein(.385/.467/.462) have both had very good success against Sheets—this would be an excellent time for them to (continue) break(ing) out of their slumps to set an upbeat tone in the dugout. Juan Encarnacion is 1-20 with a dinger, John Rodriguez is 2-6 with a home run. Encarnacion’s 2-4 game last night was encouraging, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he gets a rest tonight.

I expect an exciting, well played game with good pitching from both teams. Go play a hard nine eight-and-a-half, fellas.

I’ll be cleaning the gutters and mowing the lawn until game-time. The misery better end when I pop open the first Budweiser and settle into the sofa.

I ran across this page a few days ago. I have a feeling that the designers of that programming language may be poking fun at Python.

While waiting for some work to finish up, I found the wikipedia entry for a similarly useless programming language called “Argh!”.

I said, “mildly,” didn’t I?

The physicists on my softball team are interesting folks, to be sure. They invented a game they call Poor-Man’s Polo—basically soccer on bikes made for little kids. They play every Saturday and I aim to get in on the game this weekend. Now some of them are moving into a house together. In order to determine who gets which room in the new crib, they’re hosting an Olympiad today. Somebody made a pdf file to list the rules. It’s hilarious.

New RHRP Jorge Sosa takes Josh Kinney’s roster spot as Cal Eldred memorial mop-up man and will wear #31 on the back of his jersey—most recently worn by John Gall. It’s a shame Kinney was sent down. He pitched well and by all accounts is a good man. Nice to have Falkenborg, Thompson, and Kinney ready to go in Memphis, though.

New 2B Ronnie Belliard swaps roster spots and number seven with Hector Luna.

From Joe Strauss’ article in today’s StL P-D:

The Pirates’ purge also sent lefthanded starting pitcher Oliver Perez and veteran righthanded reliever Roberto Hernandez to the Mets for Nady.

The Cardinals had coveted Perez, recently beset by injuries and diminished velocity. Hernandez represented a more consistent version of what they obtained in Sosa.

Jocketty said he sensed some reluctance by the Pirates to deal Perez within the division and conceded he could not make available a player of Nady’s ability in return.

Glad to see they were looking at Perez. We definitely couldn’t afford to match the Mets’ offer, made in desperation after learning that set-up man Duaner Sanchez had injured his shoulder in a taxi crash.