no game today

and thank god for that. after a long drive straight to the park in atlanta and 11.5 innings of good baseball (including strong innings from arrojo), nick "the green monster" green slams a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 12th. one disaster after another, and i had to watch that one in person. luckily, schilling was going on sat., so i got to see his complete game that marked only our 5th win in 15 games (schilling won 4 of those 5). there's no way to list our woes to date w/o writing volumes, but lowe has got to be @ the top. he is the anti-schilling. on saturday, schilling gets in trouble and reaches back for 96 mph fastballs to mow guys down; on sunday, lowe gets in trouble and has nothing back there to reach for (see "lowe's maddening meltdown"). if teams are willing to lay off the splitter and force him to throw strikes (assuming he doesn't walk them on 4 pitches), he's toast. but i'm actually a little bit optimistic today. we're @ the halfway point; we're only 2 back in the wildcard race; we've finally got the team on the field we imagined in the spring, w/ nixon and mueller back and nomar knocking the cover off the ball (even when he got out over the weekend, he hit the ball on the screws); poppy and manny are consistent; solid bullpen, foulke's gaffe on friday notwithstanding; and we can't be this bad, so the 2nd half has got to get better. right?