Boxscore

On a night when the Cardinals had already lost (not by bullpen-implosion for once), the Cincinnati Reds battled, but came up just short to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Johnny Cueto had another great start, allowing 1 earned run on 7 innings pitched. Unfortunately, the offense that so often scores in great big bunches for him was a little less loud tonight.

Newly minted All Star Joey Votto got things off right with a solo shot in the first, but the Phillies quickly tied it. They would take the lead in the 3rd, and then again in the 8th.

In the 9th, the Reds went to work against the broken Brad Lidge. Votto led off with a single. He reached third on a double play ball by Jay Bruce. Then Dusty Baker sent Miguel Cairo up to pinch hit. At this point, I was doubting that the Reds late-inning magic would be able to strike again. I was wrong.

Cairo doubled to left field, and Votto walked home to score the tying run.

The Phillies were held scoreless in the bottom of the 9th, so off to extras we went. Logan Ondrusek pitched a scoreless 10th, and then it was Jordan Smith’s turn. After getting through the heart of the lineup in the 11th, he started the 12th against the bottom of the order.

Smith got the first batter on a ground-out to Scott Rolen. But the second batter, Brian Schneider, homered on the second pitch he saw. That ended the Reds road, extra-inning games streak and prevented the team from going up 4 games on St. Louis.

The good news is this, though. The Reds will still be in first-place at the All Star break. They’re playing even with last year’s National League Champs, and they show no signs of stopping anytime soon.

And it’s about time!

Congratulations to everyone out there who did their part to get Joey Votto elected to the All-Star Game. From Reds.com:

Votto was a machine throughout the Final Vote. The Reds’ first baseman won wire-to-wire, powered by a fury of snub response and leading all vote-getters with 13.7 million en route to becoming the first Cincinnati player to win the All-Star Final Vote.

I think I’ll celebrate my finishing my Business Law final and drinking a Canadian beer. Go Reds!

I love waking up in the morning to find an alert on my phone that the Cardinals bullpen struck again and the team’s early lead evaporated at the last possible moment. St. Louis has had the worst luck this season–enough, I think, to call them snake-bit. It’s about time. This puts the Reds three games into the lead of the division and 12 games over .500. Those are some nice numbers.

The last-man voting for the All-Star Game ends today at 4 p.m. ET, which is a little more than five hours away. If the Twitter feeds are to be believed, there are some people who are really throwing their heart and soul into this vote. A surprising number of people have claimed to have voted “the maximum,” which apparently means they didn’t even go to the site before claiming to have thrown in their lot with Votto, since there is not limit on how many times you can vote in this contest.

That’s right, five hours of voting and no limit on what you, too, can contribute. Even with as slow as the site loads the verification codes, you can squeeze in about 400 votes per hour. You still have time to tack on a couple thousand votes! No lead is safe!

A couple hours after we get the news about whether our voting efforts have been fruitful, the Reds will take on the Phillies. Tonight game will be to take a shot for every line-drive that almost takes Ryan Howard’s head off.

Voting ends at 4 p.m. ET on Thursday. Real fans have voted hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and Votto’s lead remains slim. It’s not too late to do your part and join this elite group of Votto supporters: start now!