Edinson now has back-to-back stellar outings following his rough outing vs. Atlanta on April 24th.

Edinson Volquez was dealin’ and Brandon Phillips is starting to realize that hitting behind Joey Votto is pretty darn fun.  Phillips, now riding a five-game winning streak, went 3-5 with six RBI’s and Volquez cruised through eight shutout innings in the Reds 7-0 win over the Fish.

Phillips is batting .333 in May and is starting to see a lot more pitches to hit due to the gaining respect pitchers have for Joey Votto.  If Brandon continues his hot bat, and Votto keeps being Votto-matic, look out for the middle of this lineup.

Defense was also huge last night, with five outstanding plays, including Jerry Hairston cutting down John Baker at the plate to keep the Marlins off the board in the 4th inning.

Nick Masset pitched a perfect ninth to preserve the shutout.  We’ll have more on Masset this week, but he has been spectacular so far this season.  1-0, 1.64 ERA, and has only allowed two earned runs all season in eleven innings pitched.  Not bad for a guy that was considered filler when the Reds traded Griffey (and his salary) to the White Sox last season.

FSN Ohio Line of the Night:  Our FSN LOTN comes from Chris “The Creeper” Welsh when he added this gem when discussing the lack of true celebration in Mexico for Cinco de Mayo this year because of the Swine Flu epidemic:

“You know George (Grande), it’s hard to drink cervezas with those masks on…”