Weathers holds up

Phew. The Reds nearly blew it.

When I left for the ballpark this evening, my personalized desktop weather from the Weather Channel, adorned with Nats logos, told me it was raining outside. However, as I walked to the Metro, I saw nothing but glorious sunshine. Clouds drifted in over the course of the game, creating a strange breeze inside the stadium and making it quite cool. Fortunately, the rain held off until David "As predictable as the" Weathers had two outs in the ninth, when a cold mist began to fall, and had there been any Nats fans left in the stadium, I would have thought the rain was their tears.

The game was one of those dull ones where there is too much offense to be a good, quick pitchers' duel but not enough offense to keep you from being amused by the grounds crews' rush to clean up the field between every inning. As the rain made its way towards us, the air inside the stadium was a swirling mass of hot dog wrappers, newspapers, peanut bags, and other plastic bags and scraps of paper. Felipe Lopez had to stuff a whole page of newspaper in his pocket while the Reds were on the field; Ryan Zimmerman cleaned up his hot corner when the Nats were out there. It was like American Beauty, only the swirling trash looked violent, almost menacing, taunting the players with threats to blow in their faces if balls came their way.

The Reds mighty offense is slumping, but they are still winning, which is what good teams do. I suppose you can chalk this one up to the pathetic performance of Billy Traber, because once he came out, the Reds' bats were fairly quiet, with the notable exception of the fifth inning. If anything, this was the questionable game of the series, as we had Dave "Tee ball tee" Williams going. He didn't pitch well, but he pitched so much better than his last performance that you could forget that he didn't pitch well. (Come on, he gave up two longballs in RFK Canyon!)

Our man Coffey wasn't so hot today, either. Ok, he did coax a double play ball when he needed it, but he was wild and not helped by his defense coughLopezcough, just like yesterday. I had a strange feeling when he charged to the mound - it was *gasp* confidence that he could do the job. He did the job in the fifth, not so much in the sixth, when Mercker had to bail him out.

Ed-E was the offensive star of the game, driving in four of the six runs on a double and a single. Brandon Phillips extended his hit streak to nine games and added an RBI. Adam Dunn extended his strikeout streak to eight games. For the Nats, Alfonzo Soriano extended his hit streak to eleven games and Nick Johnson extended his to eight, but Jose Guillen failed to make it eight in a row.

If you've ever seen the Reds win as a visiting team, you know it just isn't the same as a home game. You want to see fireworks, celebrate, turn to the stranger next to you and cheer, but all you find are long faces or evil stares at your team's cap which sits atop your head. When the losing team is a team you would normally root for, even your friends are confused when you cheer for the boys in the gray unies below you. Yes, my Reds are 14-7 and should be 15-7 after tomorrow, insha'allah, but my Nats are losing and it just isn't as fun when you have no one to celebrate with.