Scheppers falls short in American League Final Vote

BALTIMORE -- Rangers reliever Tanner Scheppers was appreciative for the support, but he did not win the American League Final Vote. Scheppers finished in fifth place when the final votes were counted up on Thursday afternoon.

Blue Jays reliever Steve Delabar won the Final Vote for the AL. He received 9.6 million votes to out-distance David Robertson of the Yankees, Joaquin Benoit of the Tigers, Koji Uehara of the Red Sox and Scheppers.

"Thank you for all the support and taking the time every day to vote for me," Scheppers said Thursday. "I feel extremely blessed that people in Texas and around the country would give me that kind of support."

The Dallas Cowboys, the Dallas Stars and the cities of Arlington and Fort Worth used their social media platforms on Thursday to try and help Scheppers make a last-minute charge. The Rangers also pushed the #TakeTanner tweet right up to the end.

This year's All-Star Game MLB.com Final Vote Sponsored by freecreditscore.com concluded with a six-hour Twitter vote as tweets with a player's designated hashtag counted in his overall total. The program drew a sustained average of more than 4,200 tweets per minute (+63 percent more than 2012 in a four-hour window), highlighted by a peak of 24,660 at 3:59 p.m. EDT, and accounted for 13 percent of the total votes cast during the six-hour window.

The leading Twitter vote-getter was #VoteFreddie, followed by #VotePuig, #HighSocksForVotes, #RaiseTheBar and #HighFiveCiti in the top five. All of the leading contenders had their hashtags trending in the U.S., worldwide and in their respective local markets.