There's a gym at the Super Mondo Corporation where we work and today there was some big volunteer thing going on with a bunch of kids learning basketball moves. Attending the big goings on was Thunder, the mascot of the Golden State Warriors. Or at least we think it was really the Thunder (who knows if it was really him behind the mask. There could be hundreds of people out there dressed like him to do publicity stuff, like how Krusty once hired Barney to pretend he was him at Kamp Krusty). Now the funny thing is that we happened to notice that right outside of the gym was a limo and standing in front of the limo was the limo driver, just waiting around for what we guessed was Thunder to finish up. So, yes, for those of you wondering, Thunder gets driven around in a limo.

No word if he got into the limo in or out of his costume. We thought about waiting around in the men's locker room to see if he would come up to change but decided not to when we realized that could look kind of creepy.

Reds 4 Giants 2- Oh, Matt Cain, what did you do to deserve this? He lost again last night after giving up only two runs in six innings. One of them, the one that gave him the L, came as a result of first a horrible call by the third base umpire and then a little flair that went off the glove of second baseman Eugenio Velez. With those two runs, his ERA is now up to 3.68 which still puts him in the top 30 in the league for ERA. He has a better ERA than Greg Maddux, Justin Verlander and Chien-Ming Wang. Wang, btw, has 18 wins. Also, batters are only hitting .235 against him, better than, well, a whole hell of a lot of other pitchers. If there's any consololation for the Cainer it's that somebody looked at some numbers and came up with some stat called "Worst Records by Pitchers Who Are That Unhittable" and he's ranked fifth, right below such notables as Nolan Ryan and Walter Johnson. Pretty good company, there. Pretty, pretty, pretty good. So cheer up, Matt, anytime you get to be in the same company as Ryan and the Big Train your in good company.

Reds 6 Giants 3- Giants lost, blah...blah...blah but the big news is that Barry has decided that he won't participate in Monday's Home Run Derby. Bad legs and all that. Now, this can't be considered that much of a surprise as Barry can't even deign to show up for team photos. But still, if there's anybody who should be there, it's Barry. It's his house. It's like Springsteen going on tour but not playing New Jersey. It's like Dick Cheney going on a trip to Europe and not going to Transylvania. It's like Steve Miller not going to "Swingtown." Oh yeah, he's got bad legs and all that but it's not like the Giants are in the playoff race so it's not like his missing out a few games due to competing in the Derby would set the team back. The only thing the Giants have left this season is the circus surrounding Barry and the Home Run Derby is about as circus-like as it gets. If you’re doing the circus, you might as go all the way

A's 3 Mariners 2- Hey, the A's are in a big series right now, a big four game series against the M's. The M's have to be considered one of the big surprises in the season because, well, nobody thought they'd be any good. Whether or not they have any staying power is a whole other matter, but right now the Mariners are 3 1/2 games ahead of the A's. In game 1 of the series, two long lost A's, Nick Swish and Bobby Crosby both homered as Chad Gaudin picked up his eighth win.

Giants 9 Reds 5- Here are three things we once thought improbable: Britney Spears having a comeback, Mitt Romney winning a "Pet Owner of the Year" award, and Matt Cain getting enough run support to win. Well, the improbable happened and for the first time since Mother's Day, the Official Favorite Giant of SFist got enough run support to win. In fact, he got a lot of run support, all thanks to Fred Lewis who hit his second grand slam of the season. Lewis played in place of Barry Lamar who sat out with bad legs. Wally Pipp anyone?

Blue Jays 10 A's 3- Ouch

Blue Jays 11 A's 7- What up with the A's pitching staff? For months and months, the pitching was an impregnable fortress. Now, it's leaking all over the place. The pitcher who got tagged this time was Lenny DiNardo who was done in mainly by Vernon Wells. The good news, however, is that the A's offense is still scoring runs. The even better news is that one of their main competitors in the playoff chase, the Mariners, should be imploding any second know due to their manager stepping down in the midst of an eight game winning streak. Nobody is asking us, but our theory is that the manager, Mike Hargrove, pulled a Costanza and decided to go out on top. You know, always leave them wanting more.

The Giants didn't play last night as they're on their way to Cincinnati to play the Reds, the worst team in the NL. We watched both PTI and Around the Horn yesterday and people on both shows were throwing around crazy conspiracy theories that Barry L's sudden surge of votes at the last minute was cooked up by MLB as a way of having Bonds play the game without him having to be selected by Bud Selig. We called "Loose Change" to see what they think about all this and they said they'll get back to us.

A's 5 Reds 3- Dan Haren won his ninth game as the A's beat the Reds to take the series and insure themselves of a winning record in interleague play. The A's hit a home run (by the resurgent Jack Cust), played some small ball, were patient at the plate, and did all those things that winning baseball teams do. But while the Reds are kind of easy picking, the A's are off to Shea to take on the Mets. That should be kind of fun. Enjoy A's fans.

A's 6 Reds 1- It looks like as long as the A's play the Reds and not the Red Birds, all is well with the world. Joe Blanton did the pitching deed this time and pitched a brisk two hour game to get his seventh win. The fun news in A's-land however, is that the NY Times spent part of their Sunday sports section ruminating on what Billy Beane could possibly do with the revenues from their big, shiny new stadium. Shorter story: the rest of baseball should be afraid, very afraid.

First, onto baseball:

The Giants are now on a three-game roll after taking two from the Cubbies and beating the Reds in ten innings Monday. Your Black & Orange hero? Shea Hillenbrand who hit the game-winning home run in extra innings. That trade is suddenly looking less like a total disaster these days. Also of note, the heating up of Barry Bonds who hit numero 730 and has now hit five home runs in his past six starts. That gulp you're hearing is of pitchers in the NL, other teams in the Wild Card hunt, and officials at Major League Baseball now pondering the meaning of a so hot right now Barry. The Giants have now won 15 of 21 and are for the first time in a long while, .500. No, we're not going to go there as of yet but we're starting to disbelieve our disbelief.

The A's, meanwhile, got spanked by the Rangers, 8-1, with Barry Zito being the recipient of said spanking. The game featured a real, live, actual inside-the-park-home run which is always cool, even if a member of the opposing team did it. The loss however is nothing but a big yawn as they still took the weekend series against the O's and are 6 1/2 up on the Angels. Of even bigger deal is the sudden appearance of the "Magic Number Box" in the Chron over the weekend. The number is around 18 games or so (we lost track over the haze of a three day weekend) but seeing the Magic Number Box always brings a tingle to the heart.

Now onto college football--

The Cal Bears set back the cause of West Coast Pac 10 football by getting absolutely creamed at Tennessee, 35-18. And Stanford set back the cause of Elite Smarty Pants Institutions by getting even creamedier by the Oregon God-Awful Uniforms, 48-10. Oh well, as we used to sing in High School when our football team lost, "That's Alright, That's Okay, We're Going to Be Your Boss Sometime," although all things considering these two universities, it'll be more like "that's alright, that's okay, we'll downsize your asses to India Someday." Or, in Stanford's case "That's alright, that's okay, we'll stupidly send your kid to Iraq someday."

Oh, and the Jeff George era ended after just a week as he was released. Thanks for coming, George.