Baseball In The Daytime: August 5 2009

When you think about it, day baseball is one of the most environmentally friendly civic movements one can imagine. By leaving the lights off, we're preventing like eleventy billion tons of smog-forming emissions from reaching the atmosphere, and our kids will breathe easier in the future. Baseball in the Daytime: hippie-approved since 1837!

So whizz your Prius down to the old ball yard or fire up your hand-cranked radio device for the game action, detailed below if you click right about here...

St. Louis @ NY Mets, 10:10 Mountain Citi Field is the venue and the Cardinals and Mets are the teams for this renewal of a classic Senior Circuit rivalry. Kyle Lohse gets the start for the road Birds, and Lohse is one of only two Native Americans on MLB rosters (the other is flaming fuckstick Joba Chamberlain). Rookie lefty Jonathan Niese dons the home whites of the Metropolitans, who really suck. Yeah, yeah, injuries, cry me a river. Isn't it fun when the team with the second highest payroll in baseball is dreadful? Yes? No? I think it's fun.

San Francisco @ Houston, 12:05 Entering last night's games, the NL Central was bunched into a cute little pattern--you had the Cubbies and the Cards tied in first, the Brewers and the Astros knotted together at 4 games back, and the free-falling Reds and perennially rebuilding Pirates locked at 11 and a half in arrears. So these clubs all played a bunch of baseball games--Albert Pujols hit his fifth grand slam of the year (five fucking grand slams?), Tom Gorzellany won his Cub debut, and everyone else lost. So the NL Central is still bunched into that cute little pattern, only with different numbers.

Joe Martinez makes his first big-league start for the Giants, so we're all pulling for old Joe. Except fans of the Rockies, who are engaged in a gladiatorial death brawl with San Fran for the wild card, they want Joe Martinez to immolate on the mound at Minute Maid Park. Brian Moehler is your Astros starter, he's been around if you know what I mean.

Atlanta @ San Diego, 1:35 There's a faux beach in right center at Petco Park, where you can get some sand in your shoes. Don't goof off in that litterbox too much or you'll miss the rampaging Atlanta Braves, who are in the midst of a violent siege of the Phillies. At press time the Braves sat six and a half back of the champs after winning four of their last ten. Wait, that's not any good. Atlanta does have a nice rotation, represented today by rookie phenom Tommy Hanson, who's kind of fat and nasty yet locates his breaking pitches nicely. Chad Gaudin starts for the Friars, and Chad Gaudin is scheduled to make $1.8 mil this season. So the drinks are on him after the game. I like pina coladas, and getting caught in Play Ball!