Game One: Reds 7, Brewers 6

Baseball has the capacity to infuriate me in a way nothing else can. Anybody that followed the Brewers game today would understand why.  What makes baseball unique is that there is no clock. If you have a large lead you cannot end the game through a series of kneel-downs or go into a stall offense. A baseball game is not over until the last out is recorded. This provides us fans with a reason for hope and a reason to throw a brick through our TV. The Brewers blowing a three-run lead in the bottom of the 9th did not exactly inspire me with hope.  The Brewers led the game for as long as you possibly can lead a game without winning it. Rickie Weeks led off the season with a home run and the Reds did not gain the advantage until Ramon Hernandez hit a three-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the 9th. With one swing of the bat I went from feeling warm and fuzzy about an opening day win against the defending NL Central champions to hoping the ESPN.com gamecast was malfunctioning. It was not.  But here is the worst part about the loss: these types of games prevent you from making the playoffs. Yes, it is only game 1 of 162, but that doesn't matter in this case. It's a game the absolutely should have won. If the Brewers miss the playoffs by one game you can point to this loss as the reason why and not be wrong. (Unless of course they make a habit of losing games like this, which is certainly possible) The good news is that the Brewers have 161 more games to make up for today. The bad news is that these are the Brewers we're talking about.