Your daily Joey Votto update

Here's your daily Joey Votto update:

One day after being left off the National League All-Star team and getting tossed against the Cubs, Votto hit two home runs to take the National League lead.

[MLB.com]

Not surprisingly, Votto is in the lead in the 'Final Vote' campaign. He has received one (1) vote courtesy of the 'Eh' Factor (as has Delmon Young in the American League).

What's great is that in the lead-up to the All-Star game is a four-game series with the Philadelphia Phillies, led by Charlie Manuel, the old coot who left Votto off the team in favour of Omar Infante, who hit a game-winning single against the Phillies on June 2nd. Supposedly Manuel was impressed enough to name him to the team.



That series gets underway Thursday. I predict infinity home runs for Votto, and a foul ball that lands in the Phillies dugout knocking Manuel into the 21st century, where he'll learn that we measure the quality of baseball players by such things as 'home runs' 'total bases' and 'on-base plus slugging' now, and not with whatever quality we used to determine that Omar Infante was a more worthy choice.

'Hustle' or 'character' or whatever bullshit that was.

Joey Votto snubbed from all-star game, gets tossed

Only Albert Pujols had hit more home runs than Joey Votto prior to Sunday's games, yet Phillies manager Charlie Manuel felt it necessary to leave the CANADIAN off the National League All-Star roster.

Sure, All-Star games themselves are meaningless, but as a friend pointed out to me earlier, appearances matter so much when it comes time to negotiate salaries or possible Hall of Fame inductions (okay, that's a bit of a stretch for Votto) down the road.

Votto also leads the National League in OPS, is second in on-base percentage. Hell, his numbers are pretty damn comparable to the starter Pujols but nobody is really disputing that Votto should have been the starter. Why Adrian Gonzalez and Ryan Howard were seen as better first basemen than Votto is bad enough, but then Manuel added insult to injury by taking Omar Infante.

Luckily, he can still make the roster via a fan vote. He's up against Heath Bell, Carlos Gonzalez, Billy Wagner and Ryan Zimmerman.

So what did Votto do after hearing the news?

Joey Votto was ejected in the first inning today here at Wrigley, for arguing a called third strike.

Votto protested, slammed his helmet to the ground and was ejected by plate umpire Angel Campos. Manager Dusty Baker rushed out of the dugout and said a few words himself, but Baker was not tossed.

[Reds Win 14-3; Votto ejected]

The strike call itself was iffy, definitely low and probably a bit outside as well, although MLB gameday listed it as a strike.

All in all, Votto has seen better days, although Cincy still managed to beat the Cubs 14-3. Hell, maybe he just wanted to take the day off.

Only one Canadian was sent to Disneyland, that being Justin Morneau (duh). Three Jays are on the roster: John Buck, Jose Bautista and Vernon Wells.