Braves Win.

We came through fine and fine, which is less than can be said for locales west of the mountains and south of those same mountains. A seasonally forgotten quirk of living here, in the near-shadow of the mountains: Big lines of storms coming from way due west rarely have time to regain their same brutal intensity after they cross the mountains. Bad for Nashville and Knoxville. Good, I guess, for us and ours. Plenty of rain. A little thunder and lightning. Not much wind, and no hail.

It did hail on the Atlanta Braves, who were five runs, fourteen hits, no errors, to the Nationals' four runs, fourteen hits, no errors. Ten innings. Another bullpen collapse. Blame the nickel-sized hail that fell on them mid-game, I guess, but if there's one thing my late-night/early-morning half-fevered coughing jag taught me, it was these two things: (1) do not get the flu, and (2) no sense getting excited about the Braves in a division this competitive if the pen can't even hold the Nats in your home opener. I've seen the closer pitch twice so far this year, once in Philly and once at zero-dark-thirty last night, and while some of his stuff is fancy-fancy, he makes me nervous, like I want to sit him down and ask him if he's OK, if maybe he wants to talk about his girlfriend, or whether or not his dogs are fully up on their shots, or if the thunderstorms scared him.

They scared the dog. She was under the kitchen table at noon. We have never had a kitchen table before. This is helping the dog in her barometric duties. And me in mine. No dog under the table today. No storms.

Typical April forecast upcoming: Days like this, where you'll want both short and long sleeves, depending, and then also days like yesterday. Don't look here for any kind of guarantee about which day will be which, except this: Yesterday was not such a good day to go to the ballpark. Today is better. That's about all. Less forecast. More outside. More porch. The flu, friends and fans of respiratory health, it keeps you from the porch.