Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 2:00 a.m. in "The City."

Sports news yesterday was once again mixed. The 14 - 10 Cubs, behind a stellar pitching performance, the kind the Cubs expected when they traded for him, by Jose Quintana, defeated the 16 - 12 Milwaukee Brewers, 3 - 0. Several miscues by the Brewers in the field helped the Cubs as Kris Bryant returned to the Cubs' starting lineup. The Cubs won't say whether Bryant had a concussion, but his recent beaning certainly suggests that as a strong possibility. From now on, he'll be wearing a batting helmet with an ear/cheek flap. Tyler Chatwood takes the hill for the suddenly surging Cubs @ 2:20 p.m. EDT.

The 11 - 14 Tigers righted their leaking ship last night with a 9 - 5 victory over the 7 - 20 Orioles. Obviously, even though my one-time English professor, Jack Dodds, would say if it's obvious, you don't need to say it, the Tigers once again beat a team that isn't as good as themselves. At any rate, Miggy, Miguel Cabrera, socked a home-run and netted five RBIs, for the night. He freely admits that he is now too slow to achieve what baseball statisticians call "The Cycle", where a player gets all four types of his in a game, a single, a double, a triple, and a home-run. Yes, he is a lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame, likely getting more than 3,00 hits and 500 home-runs in his career, but he is in the twilight of what has been a great run for the Tigers. Dan Norris is on the bump for the Tigers today @ 1:05 p.m. EDT.

My beloved 19 - 7 Red Sox fell hard yesterday to the resurgent 12 - 13 Tampa Bay Rays, 6 - 12. Sadly, the Sox pitching once again imploded as they tried for their 20th win. Pitching Ace, former
Tiger Rick Porcello, tosses the first pitch today @ 1:05 p.m. EDT.


The 13 - 8 Caps were trying to return to first-place in the MWL East in a game against the still first-place 15 - 7 Lansing Lugnuts. Sadly, the Caps couldn't get the job done and lost to the Lugnuts, 5 - 13. Yesterday's loss drops the Caps 1.5 games behind the Lugnuts instead of being .5 games ahead of them. The Caps and the Lugnuts play again this afternoon @ 2:00 p.m. EDT.


Otherwise, Mary indexed yesterday after fulfilling my request for mushroom gravy topped potatoes and faux vegan meat-loaf for brunch. Once again, to use a baseball term, she hit it out of the park. Once brunch was over, I took the fur-children for individual walks so that Mary could get to work. STWD and I were doing fine on our way to The Bookman, until we rounded the corner and a band was just coming to life right outside the door of The Bookman to help celebrate Independent Bookstore Day.

That was bad enough, but after I literally dragged the intrepid weather dog into the store, when we rounded the bend, the largest Husky I've ever seen greeted us. Fortunately, the Husky was well-behaved and I was able to hold Sugar in check. We exited the back door to avoid another episode with the band. Misfortune piled on misfortune as the roofers were still hard at work on the new roof of the Episcopal church near the PE. The nail-guns the roofers were using sounded like firecrackers to Sugar and we ran all the way home. Let's just say that Sugar was not happy and leave it at that.

We have a chilly 34° as our current temperature according to the NWS and my own DTWS. Later today, after the sun rises @ 6:41 a.m. and long before it sets @ 8:43 p.m., the forecast calls for a high temperature of 49° under sunny skies. Monday, the high is forecast to reach 61° while Tuesday's high is supposed to reach 65°, both under sunny or mostly-sunny skies. It looks like it may be time to break out my summer uniform for good. However, the forecast also calls for temperatures to fall into the upper 50s by Thursday, with a 90% chance for T-storms on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Today, I'm hoping for grits for breakfast and then Mary can get back to work and hopefully finish that index. I'll have to edit it for submission if she does. Otherwise, reading is on tap for me. Ciao.