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PITTSBURGH -- Joey Votto is having one special finish to the season. So good even he isnt sure it can continue for much longer.Votto celebrated his 33rd birthday with four hits, including a home run, and the Cincinnati Reds beat the collapsing Pittsburgh Pirates 8-7 on Saturday night.Votto led off the ninth inning with his 23rd homer, a drive to right off Juan Nicasio that gave the Reds a two-run cushion. The 2010 NL MVP is hitting .427 in 51 games since the All-Star break and could become the first major leaguer to hit .400 in the second half since Ichiro Suzuki had a .429 average in 2004 with the Seattle Mariners.Its pretty unlikely, Votto said. Well see. Just mathematically, its very unlikely to hit .400 for such a long period.Reds manager Bryan Price, who was the Mariners pitching coach in 2004, believes Votto can follow in Ichiros footsteps.Joey is such a great hitter, Price said. He can hit the ball out of the ballpark, hit the ball all over the field and has such great plate discipline that he gets on base at a .430 clip. Its special when you see this kind of production over this period of time.The Pirates flickering hopes of a fourth consecutive postseason berth took another hit as they dropped 5 1/2 games back of St. Louis for the second NL wild card with their 10th loss in 12 games.When asked if he would call a meeting in an effort to spark his team, manager Clint Hurdle gave a terse answer.The one thing I do is when I talk to guys, I dont tell you I talk to them, he said.Francisco Cervelli hit a two-out RBI single in the ninth for Pittsburgh, but Tony Cingrani held on for his 17th save. With runners on first and second, Jordy Mercer bounced into a fielders choice for the final out.Brandon Phillips had three of Cincinnatis 15 hits, helping the Reds rally from an early 4-0 deficit for their second straight win following nine losses in 11 games. Tucker Barnhart drove in three runs.Phillips is hitting .365 (19 for 52) with four homers and 10 RBI in 14 games against the Pirates this season.The Reds jumped in front with three runs in the fifth against rookie reliever Trevor Williams (1-1). Scott Schebler had a bases-loaded walk before Barnhart made it 7-4 with a two-run double.Jung Ho Kangs two-run homer off rookie starter Robert Stephenson gave the Pirates a 4-0 lead in the third inning. Kang finished with two hits and three RBI.Pirates second baseman Josh Harrison left in the sixth inning after injuring his right groin while legging out a two-run double that got the Pirates within one at 7-6. He is 17 for 42 (.405) with six doubles during a 10-game hit streak.Josh Smith (3-1) got the win despite allowing two runs in 2 1/3 innings.Stephenson threw 43 pitches during a two-run first inning and made it through just three innings, getting tagged for four runs and five hits.Acquired in an Aug. 1 trade with Toronto and assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis, Drew Hutchison gave up four runs and eight hits in four innings in his Pirates debut.I liked the way guys pushed through, Price said. Were down 4-0. Were struggling to win games. We have to take a struggling starter out after three innings. Then here come the Reds with four runs to tie it, three runs to take the lead then the bullpen bent a little but got the job done.TRAINERS ROOMPirates: LF Starling Marte (back spasms) sat out for a fifth straight game and there is no timetable for his return.KUHL SET FOR RETURNPirates right-hander Chad Kuhl will return to the rotation Thursday night and start at Philadelphia. The rookie was originally supposed to start Saturday but the Pirates decided to give him a break after working 134 1/3 innings between Pittsburgh and Indianapolis this season.UP NEXTReds: LHP Brandon Finnegan (8-10, 4.17 ERA) will start Sunday in the finale of the four-game series. He is winless in his last three starts despite a 3.00 ERA in that span.Pirates: RHP Ryan Vogelsong (3-4, 4.07 ERA) has allowed a combined 10 runs in nine innings in his last two starts while going 0-1. Fake Dodgers Jerseys . The head of USA Boxing came out swinging Tuesday with an open letter to Tyson -- a former Olympic hopeful himself -- that accuses the former heavyweight champion of trying to poach fighters who might be candidates for the U. Vin Scully Jersey . All of the scoring came in the final 20:04. Lucic scored on a power play at 15:46 of the third period, when he tipped a shot over Stars goalie Kari Lehtonen for a 3-1 lead. https://www.cheapdodgersonline.com/315h-jedd-gyorko-jersey-dodgers.html . LOUIS -- Cardinals cleanup hitter Allen Craig says hes recovered from a foot injury and ready to be put on St. Los Angeles Dodgers Store . Traditional contenders Brazil, Greece and Turkey drew the other three spots to complete the 24-team field for this summers tournament in Spain, basketball governing body FIBA announced Saturday at its meeting in Barcelona. Kyle Garlick Jersey . "It doesnt get any better than that," Giambi said. "Im speechless." The Indians are roaring toward October. Giambi belted a two-run, pinch-hit homer with two outs in the ninth inning to give Cleveland a shocking 5-4 win over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night, keeping the Indians up with the lead pack in the AL wild-card race. In November, espnWs weekly essay series will focus on giving.Ive been thinking a lot about losing lately, about its inevitability, and how it hurts just as bad every time. Sometimes it teaches you something, and sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes you fail despite doing everything right.If that big fail happens when youre at the top of your game, it can be a gift, as Ronda Rousey will demonstrate next month when she enters the Octagon for the first time in more than a year.Her return is brave, and I tell myself this a lot: Going back to the spot where you failed and trying again is brave.The last time Rousey was in the ring, after winning and hanging onto the UFC womens bantamweight belt over the course of six fights, Holly Holm destroyed her with a knockout kick to the head.There were, it seems, two reactions to that loss; those of us who thought Rousey was invincible, and then were shocked and disappointed to discover that she wasnt.We like our superheroes to always win. Rousey made winning look easy: fights won in 34 seconds, or 14 seconds, often by arm bar.Then there were the people who emerged to say why they couldve predicted Rouseys loss, why shed been unprepared, or distracted by celebrity and media interviews, and that she was too arrogant for her own good.The former Olympic judo medalist never struck me as arrogant. More like driven. This is a woman who started judo at 11, and whose own mother, a judoka who once won gold at the World Judo championship, used to wake her up by trying to execute an arm bar.Compared to her mom, Rousey thought of herself as laid-back. Of her upbringing, she said, The rule was you could pick anything you wanted to do in the world, but you just had to be the best in the world at it.Just.She did and she tried. She worried her body was too masculine. She binged and purged to maintain her weight class. After she took the bronze in judo in the 2008 Olympics, she struggled with depression, drank, bartended, and at points lived out of her car.When she found MMA, she wanted those wins badly, and along the way, she transformed womens MMA.Whenever people talk about how cocky and arrogant I am, it blows me away, because I worked so hard to develop self-confidence, she told the New Yorker in 2014.Rousey at the top of her game is something to behold. She glares. She struts. She cries after a win. She is an out-there character in a no-holds-barred sport, her quotes provocative, pithy and playful. Every one of my muscles is here for a purpose, she once said. And if she talked smack before fights, it was partly a manifestation of all that will, not to mention a means of making sure shed prove herself right in the ring.ddddddddddddIm willing to die in here, she said in 2014, during blustery pre-game fight interviews.Theres an interview Rousey did with UFC analyst Joe Rogan last year, before the Holm fight, where she talks about seeing herself a bit like actor Heath Ledgers Joker, a villain the audience cant help but root for. Protagonists react, while antagonists make things happen, she says.Rousey is that rare public female figure who is quite open about the fact that she does not care about being liked. After she wouldnt touch gloves with Holm before her fight -- when she lost, Lady Gaga posted an Instagram of her being pummeled with the caption, Thats what you get for not touching gloves! -- those of us that loved Rouseys swagger felt the familiar sting at a woman getting her comeuppance. We wondered when the sports world -- heck, when the rest of the world -- would be ready for a female antihero.In the months since that fight, Rousey has talked about how it felt to lose. After she got clipped by Holm, she said, I wasnt really there anymore, using language shed once used triumphantly to describe her effect on another opponent. The master of her own body, who trains by climbing trees, who describes herself as a ninja when shes feeling good, didnt even feel like she was inside it. And everybody was watching.Afterward, she told Ellen DeGeneres she felt suicidal. I was like, What am I anymore if Im not this? She said this with tears running down her face, knotting her hands together in her lap. Im thinking what my actual purpose is, and maybe just winning all the time isnt whats best, she added. Maybe I just had to be the example of picking myself up off the floor for everyone. Maybe thats what Im meant for.Ive been thinking a lot about winning lately -- about what it gives you, and what it deprives you of. How we get virtue and victory mixed up sometimes, and wind up valuing the wrong thing. The truth is, most of us dont win all the time; heck, most of us dont win half the time. Most of us know that feeling of losing better than we know the feeling of winning.Next months bout might be one of Rouseys last. I want her to win again. Im a courageous person because Im a scared person, Rousey said years ago.I believe her. ' ' '