It’s never fun to blow a lead in the eighth inning, but in a way, last night’s loss came as a bit of a relief. Jose Mesa was pitching too well. Albert Pujols should hit huge homers off of guys like Mesa. It’s a return to the natural order of things. Besides, there were too many encouraging signs for the Rockies in this one to come away completely devastated. (It’s waaay to early to be scoreboard-watching, but Arizona and San Diego lost, too.) Josh Fogg pitching Chris Carpenter to a standstill? (Fogg and the reigning Cy Young winner each posted game scores of 63.) Another homer, a road homer, natch, for Matt Holliday? Another walk for Jamey Carroll? A double for slumping Clint Barmes? This is all good stuff, and Colorado still has a very good chance to claim this series with Byung-Hyun Kim facing Jeff Suppan today in the rubber game.

Todd Helton was on the Dan Patrick show yesterday talking about how he keeps footage of his every major-league at-bat in his video iPod. Jeez, Todd, I’d hate to tell you what I keep in my video iPod.

I don’t know how many of you are "Veronica Mars" fans — I know Will Carroll is — but the finale last night was the emotional equivalent of the 2003 NLCS, only with more murder. Unlike last season, I had no clue what was coming, but when the big reveal came down (and if you watched it, you know it was brilliantly handled, with a single prop close-up telling Veronica and the audience everything they needed to know) I was kicking myself for not picking up the obvious clues like I was able to with the big mystery in the first season. Apparently the show’s future is safe despite despicable ratings because UPN and the WB are merging and desperately need a few shows with good critical reputations (and not completely dying — the "Gilmore Girls" finale was on last night too, and let me tell you, the sharks are circling, and Lorelai is on waterskis in a full wedding dress) so I needn’t appeal to you for my own personal benefit. Watch "Veronica Mars". The cast is mostly very good (and from the finale it looks like they’ve written out most of the weak links), the lighting is amazing (really, I never paid attention to this sort of thing before, but every scene in this show is highly stylized and cool-looking), and Kristin Bell is a major babe. (Not to mention Charisma Carpenter. Ye gods. I’m as enlightened a feminist as they come, but Carpenter’s bikini scene in the second-season premiere was a watershed moment in TiVo history. Keep until I delete, please.) I’m a sucker for serialized storytelling, and unlike "Lost," which has been crushing it in the ratings, the "Veronica Mars" showrunner actually has a plan for where things are going instead of making things up as he goes along. The second season was a little bumpy and lost traction at a few points, not helped along by the weird logic of network TV schedulemaking, but it’s going to play beautifully on DVD. I need more people to watch this show because my head is buzzing about the season payoff last night and I want my peeps buzzing along with me.

Yeah, that’s all I got. I didn’t actually watch any baseball last night because I had band practice and then, you know, I had to watch my soaps.