Before we get started here can we just state the obvious? I frieking KILLED the title to this blog. Walk off home run of composition right there. Fark here I come!

Anyway that game was a straight up (eyemuffs mom) kick in the nuts last night. No other way to put it. Like it's been a season of ups and downs but I actually had a hard time going to bed last night after the latest bullpen meltdown. Sat up drinking beer and reading blog commentors get their internet tough-guy on comparing Axe to Turnbow and Kolb and Fetters. BrewCrewboy69 and BringBackWickman spitting hot fire! Actually it wouldn't shock me if one of those aliases was actually Ron Roenicke blowing off steam last night. But that's neither here nor there. Bottom line is K-Rod needs to be our closer at least in the short term. Axe just looks like his confidence is shot at the moment. And I wish I could join in on the hate party but I just can't. Axe is a stand up player who didn't hide from reporters last night when he could have snuck away under cover of darkness like some member of a bullpen foot clan. He sat there and drank his medicine and owned up to it while looking sadder than a dog in an ASPCA commercial. Plus he's a great community guy, hilarious of facebook and twitter and has killer facial hair. Like I said I want to hate the guy but I just can't. I root for him. I just can't root for him in the 9th inning anymore.

Make no mistake about it, today and tomorrow are MUST wins now. If you won last night you're 3-1 on the homestand and feeling pretty good about yourself. Hell if we even had just three of his six blown saves back we'd be 45-44. I still don't think it's too late but we've got to start hitting the Fatality combo in the 8th and 9th and stop giving games away. The NL Central is watered down, Joey Votto is out a month, the Pirates are the Pirates and there's and extra wild card. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?! Hell no!

PS: The truly concerning thing from yesterday was the Zack Greinke scratch start on Wednesday so he could 'recharge his batteries.' Now I don't think you have to go CSI: Zack Greinke here to figure out he's probably on his way out. I mean this has to be the precursor to a trade right? You can't tell me this 9 game stretch is the most important of the year and then sit your best pitcher, who is unbeaten at Miller Park mind you, during said stretch to 'recharge.' Just doesn't make sense. That's how they set rotations in the bizarro world. So either he's gone by Saturday or this is the stupidest yet or our many stupid decisions.

Double PS: Blue Phoenix Axe was a total game changer when it came out like 10 years ago. Smelled like stale farts and shame but it gave you the confidence of Ric Flair when you put it on. That combined with the Febreze I sprayed on my clothes in college to avoid doing laundry was lethal.