Darvish tops Peavy in All-Star Game vote

White Sox starting pitcher Jake Peavy made a strong final push for the All-Star Game Thursday, but he lost out to Texas Rangers counterpart Yu Darvish in Final Vote balloting.

Peavy apparently fared well in a “TakeJake” Twitter campaign Thursday, which counted as votes.

But Darvish, a native of Japan, is going to the Midsummer Classic in Kansas City Tuesday after piling up 7.3 million votes.

Peavy finished ahead of Jason Hammel of the Orioles, Jonathan Broxton of the Royals and Ernesto Frieri of the Angels.

“We knew we had a tough fight ahead of us but I just can’t thank the White Sox, friends, family, the fans enough,” Peavy said. “The support was overwhelming. It was humbling. It was incredible. We had so much fun with it.

“It just wasn’t meant to be. Obviously we knew it’s hard to outvote a country.”

In addition to getting votes from Texas fans, Darvish cleaned up with votes from Japan.

Peavy is 6-5 with a 2.96 ERA, 13 quality starts, 4 complete games and a .215 opponents average against.

“It’s an honor to be even talked about being an all-star,” said Peavy, who went to two All-Star Games when he pitched for the San Diego Padres.

Peavy enjoyed all of the attention he got from the Final Vote, especially humorous videos from teammate Gordon Beckham and Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. Eligible for free agency at the end of the season, Peavy didn’t hide the fact he loves playing on the South Side.

“It’s so fun to do it here in Chicago,” he said. “I would hate to finally get healthy and go pitch somewhere else and have success. To have some success here and be a part of a great team ... hopefully we can get this thing done and finish out what we got going here. It would be nothing more gratifying than to win it in Chicago after those last few years.”