Hideki Okajima of the Red Sox and Chris Young of the Padres have won a trip to the all-star game thanks to internet voting. Okajima beat out Pat Neshek, Roy Halladay, Jeremy Bonderman and Kelvim Escobar while Young won the vote over defending Cy Young winner Brandon Webb, Carlos Zambrano and Tom Gorzelanny. Roy Oswalt was initially in the voting but was selected to replace John Smoltz who is nursing an injury.
Is it just me or is the fact that Okajima’s 4.3 million or so votes over the course of four days smell a bit fishy? I think that some of those votes from the far-east may have swayed the scales in the Japanese player’s favour.
It should also be fun to see if Young and Derrek Lee, who threw punches at each other a few weeks ago, will interact during the break. My money would be on them keeping their distance. Young also, ironically started his suspension resulting from the brawl earlier yesterday.