GIVE MAJOR League Baseball credit. On a night when Shane Victorino normally would have been answering questions about his approach at the plate during the game's decisive at-bat, or about the emotions that exploded out of him as his walk-off single drove Pedro Feliz home for a 3-2 win over the Reds, he instead spent his time talking about the cardboard sandwich board that reliever Chan Ho Park wore during the postgame melee, urging all in attendance to Vote for Shane.
The Phillies won for the fifth time in six games, riding a gutsy performance from the bullpen and a timely two-out hit from the centerfielder to overcome an injury-shortened outing from starter Rodrigo Lopez, but the real victor last night was marketing.
From the hula-skirted men dancing on top of the home dugout to the three sleep-deprived lads who had spent the previous 24-plus hours hunched over laptops in a press-box dining room, heeding Park's call to Vote for Shane, the Phillies' multilevel campaign to propel Victorino into the All-Star Game took center stage.
"It means a lot to me," said Victorino, who went 2-for-4 to improve his average to .308 and stole his 14th and 15th bases of the season. "It really means what these fans are about. From Day 1, when I got called up here in '05, I knew what I was coming into. I heard a lot of good things about these fans, and it only gets better and better every day."
The irony, of course, is that in years past, when All-Star rosters were meritocracies decided by game-winning hits and not contest-winning clicks, Victorino would be doing a splendid job of punching his own ticket.
His at-bat against Reds righthander David Weathers in the ninth inning was just the latest in a sizzling offensive stretch that began in the middle of June, when the Phillies' lineup was mired in what felt like their deepest recession since the first Bush administration. Victorino entered the night hitting .365 with a .455 on-base percentage in his last 22 games and raised those numbers by reaching base in three out of five plate appearances. The final at-bat was the most pivotal, with Jimmy Rollins on first and Feliz on second in the ninth inning of a game tied at 2-2. After watching the first three pitches sail by him, he sliced a 2-1 slider into centerfield to send the winning run racing home.
Naturally, the hit was billed as a final get-out-the-vote push.
"Individually, it would be the best award I've probably ever had," Victorino said. "Obviously, winning the World Series is the best team award, and in my mind that's still No. 1. I think individual goals sometimes, you try to go out there and get things individually, but as a team we are doing what we need to do right now, and that is what it is about."
Forget the fact that, earlier in the day, Victorino took a big step toward St. Louis when Charlie Manuel announced that injured Mets centerfielder Carlos Beltran had withdrawn from the midsummer classic. (Manuel, who will manage the NL All-Stars, wasn't clear on the protocol for choosing an injury replacement, but it appears he will be able to choose Victorino to fill in.)
Last night was a night for the voice of the people, or at least the people with access to the Internet, along with enough free time to repeatedly fill out the Final Vote ballot that features Victorino and four other would-be All-Stars (the Dodgers' Matt Kemp, Arizona's Mark Reynolds, Washington's Cristian Guzman and San Francisco's Pablo Sandoval).
This is how the aforementioned three dining-room-incarcerated gentlemen spent last night's game, participants in a contest sponsored jointly by the Phillies and a local radio station that will award a variety of prizes to he who votes most often.
And they missed an eventful game, one that featured a strike zone the size of Liberty One (13 of the 53 outs came via called third strikes), and four scoreless innings from the Phillies' bullpen.
Lopez allowed two runs in five innings, but left the game for a pinch-hitter after experiencing tightness in his right shoulder. Afterward, the 33-year-old veteran downplayed the injury, saying he expected to be ready when the Phillies next need him, which won't be until after the All-Star break.
"I think it's just a little bit of tightness," Lopez said. "It's a good thing for me right now that the break is coming. There's going to be a little more time. But definitely I think I will be able to pitch on that date."
Chad Durbin recorded five outs, J.C. Romero recorded one, and Ryan Madson the final six. The three combined to allow just one baserunner, striking out five and walking none.
Jayson Werth tied the game at 2-2 in the sixth with his 19th home run, the third straight game in which he homered.
The hero of the night, though, was Victorino. He scored the team's first run in prototypical fashion, reaching on a single in the fourth, then stealing second, then advancing to third on a flyout, then scoring on a single by Ryan Howard.
Then came the game-winning single that sent the Phillies (44-38) streaming out of the dugout, and Park walking in from the bullpen wearing his promotional posterboard.
"I guess the Flyin' Hawaiian wants to go to that All-Star Game," a bemused Manuel said afterward.
And it looks as if he might get his wish. *
