My team won! Yay! My team lost! Boo!

Elizardo Ramirez (right) did something today that shows there is something there with this Cincinnati team, something I hesitate to call "special", but there's a spark with this team and it's catching. Needing an arm to replace Eric "Keep 'em in the park" Milton, Ramirez pitched brilliantly, cooling the Nats hot bats through seven outstanding innings in which he gave up only two runs on six hits and a walk. He even got his first Major League hit. I have to admit I was pretty nervous about this game, but I think he's earned himself another start in the rotation. I'll vote for it.

At 13-7, the Reds are off to their best start since 1994, and we all remember how well they were playing when the tragedy of strike befell them, and we remember that team continuing to play well in 1995 when we were division champs and went to the NLCS. I'm just saying...

I arrived at the ballpark early to watch the Reds take BP. Someone at the stadium thought it would be funny to play the WKRP theme song while they were batting, and I wondered if any of the players had been born when that show was on television. The Reds hit several out, though Dunn did not; he simply looked awful, and I rightfully predicted he would have an 0-fer. How long will this slump go on?

It was fun to watch ¡Livan! float his 65 mph pitches up to the plate, baffling Reds hitters at times. I had my eye on the pitch speed while he was out there, and in his best innings, he'd throw an 88 mph fastball and follow it up with one of those 65ers, and sometimes it looked like the Reds batters could have swung twice by the time the pitch reached the plate. They don't call it his Bugs Bunny pitch for nothing - just ask Austin Kearns, who was so lost when he swung that you almost had to laugh at him. The Reds mustered up a little offense in the first inning when they scored three, but after giving up another run in the second, Number 61 shut them down. Am I the only one who thinks ¡Livan! should warm up longer? Why does he always get pounded in the first inning?

The grounds crew did their job in soaking the field to try to take away the Reds running game. That didn't stop Brandon "I'm king of the world" Phillips from swiping a bag after he extended his hitting streak to 8 games on his last AB. He also made a spectacular grab in the sixth to save a run from scoring, nearly doubling off the Nats guy on second.

Alfonzo "Superstar" Soriano extended his hitting streak to ten games, though he did misplay/misjudge a ball ripped by Javier "Latin Love Machine" Valentin, on which LLM chug-a-lugged his way to third for probably his only triple of the season. I laughed as he rounded the bases after I realized my eyes weren't playing tricks on me and he really was going for three.

Speaking of hitting streaks, Nick "Too bad I can't play 162" Johnson extended his to 7 games, as did Jose "Barbarian" Guillen. Adam "Homerunswalksandstrikeouts" Dunn extended his strikeout streak to 7 games.

Brian Shackelford came in for Elizardo in the eighth after Alf got another hit. Shack coaxed a scary fly out to deep left before proceeding to plunk Johnson after throwing over to first a billion times to try to pick off Soriano. The meager crowd of less than 20K had grown impatient with all of the throwing, so when Johnson was hit, the stadium erupted into a chorus of boos, one of the few times during the game that you could tell there were actually people in the stadium. With two on and only one out, Guillen came up to bat and Todd "Not just a cup of" Coffey sprinted in from the leftfield bullpen, prompting Nats fans around me to make fun of him. Just wait, I said to them through telepathy, when he becomes a dominating closer, you'll think it's cool that he has his own unique entry. Coffey did what all Reds fans willed him to do - he served up a double play ball, only the throw to first went to the cameramen instead of the first baseman, moving the runners to second and third, but Javaman got the next batter to fly out to end the threat.

When the ninth inning came around, Coffey had been ineffectively pinch hit for, and I closed my eyes and chanted, "Please don't let it be Weathers, please don't let it be Weathers." When I opened them, David "As predictable as the" Weathers was taking his wrongful place atop the pitcher's mound. He promptly walked the first batter on four pitches, and I imagined what Marty must have been saying about it as I looked into the booth at his gray head. Fortunately, this walk did not haunt him, and the game ended without a bang, for the hometown team had suffered defeat at the hands of the mighty Reds.