Rosters were announced today for the 2011 All Star Game. Here’s who’s playing for the National League:

Starter

Pitchers

Reserves

Lots of Brewers among the starters and lot of Reds among the reserves, considering that they can’t see to even stay consistently in the top half of the NLC. But that’s the Reds isn’t it? Lots of good pieces, that just aren’t coming together.

I am kind of surprised not to see Johnny Cueto among the pitchers, but that’s typical of the team as well: the good pitchers can’t get any respect.

Get your vote on.

Not that the team has been so great to watch lately–it’s hard to see them get thiiiiiiis close (|—-|) every night–but it’s bound to come together for them sooner or later, and it who knows, it might well be this Friday when they retake third place from those wily Pittsburgh Pirates.

So with that possibility in mind, the Red Hot Family has taken July 1 off from work and is including a quick 2.5 hour drive to Cincinnati in the four-day weekend. The Indians will be in town, so it shouldn’t exactly be one of those games that people have to be talked into going to, but even so the Reds marketing guys have decided to use this as the tweet-up game.

I suppose if you read about it here and not on Twitter, that makes it not a real tweet-up, but everybody like a good deal and this is one of those. $25 for a ticket and a shirt is pretty darn good, even if they do tack on another $15 in processing fees.

You can check out the specifics of this deal at reds.com/tweetup and maybe the good deal will come with a good game.

“Better than nothing.” It’s a phrase I’ve been saying entirely too much lately. Offense can’t score but the starter put in a good showing? Better than nothing! The Reds can’t beat the Orioles, but at least the Cards lost, too? Better than nothing! I have to listen to The Cowboy, but George is in the booth with him? Better than nothing!

Argh! I’d like to stop comparing the experience of watching my team, even if favorably, to the utter void. Where the hell is Jocketty? Shouldn’t he be doing something?

Lots of stems of thoughts today, but no time to actually think any of them through, so I’ll leverage the lazy blogger’s favorite page layout device, the bullet:

• Chris Heisey is a helluva pinch hitter, especially when he’s leading off.
• I love how optimistic salvaging one game in the series with the Yankees makes the broadcasters. These guys have waited so long for a team to be optimistic about.
• Jack McKeon is 80. 80 years old. He can bench, yell, and bench. He’s 80.
• Hell-to-the-yeah, Johnny Cueto.
• Have you done your All-Star voting yet? Just because Pujols broke his arm and may not be able to start anyway is no reason to let him win.

Enjoy the off-day tomorrow, everyone. Fingers and toes crossed for a Cardinals loss and Brewers failure to prepare adequately for Friday.