Biking for Baseball All Stars!
The All Star Game in Kansas City is quickly approaching and the fan voting ended Thursday night. 391.2 million votes were cast by fans for their favorite players. The results will be announced Sunday afternoon.
Biking for Baseball has cycled to 13 different stadiums so far this season seeing a game in each park. To put to rest all of the inevitable debate over who should or shouldn’t be on the All Star teams, we came up with our own All Star team.
We’re going to Kansas City, and these players deserve to come with us. Well, actually these players were the ones who performed the best in the 13 games we’ve seen in person. Obviously, we haven’t seen every team in MLB, and we’ve seen the Giants and Mariners 3 times each.
Basically, we picked the players with the best games that we’ve seen so far, and the magic of small sample size gives us a very, um interesting lineup.
Enjoy!
SP Brandon Morrow, Blue Jays – 9 IP, 3 hits, 0 runs, 8 K
Middle relief Alexi Ogando, Rangers – 1 IP, 0 runs, 2 K
Closer Craig Kimbrel, Braves – 1 IP, 0 runs, 2 K, 1 save
C JP Arencibia, Blue Jays – 2/7, 5 RBI, 1 run, 1 BB, 1 2B, 1 HR
1B Justin Smoak, Mariners – 5/12, 8 RBI, 4 runs, 2 BB, 1 2B, 3 HR
2B Dustin Ackley, Mariners – 5/14, 3 RBI, 3 runs, 1 BB, 2 2B, 1 HR
3B Brett Lawrie, Blue Jays – 5/8, 5 runs, 2 BB, 1 3B
SS Alberto Gonzalez, Rangers – 3/4, 3 runs, 1 3B
OF Matt Kemp, Dodgers – 3/3, 1 run, 1 BB, 1 2B
OF Desmond Jennings, Rays – 2/5, 4 RBI, 1 run, 1 2B
OF Melky Cabrera, Giants – 6/14, 2 RBI, 2 runs, 3 2B
DH Jesus Montero, Mariners – 5/10, 6 RBI, 5 runs, 3 BB, 1 2B, 2 HR
Bench:
1B Carlos Pena, Rays – 0/1, 4 BB, 4 runs
1B Gaby Sanchez, Marlins – 3/7, 1 RBI, 2 runs, 1 HR
2B Ben Zobrist, Rays – 2/3, 1 RBI, 2 runs, 1 BB, 1 HR
OF Will Venable, Padres – 3/8, 1 RBI, 1 run, 1 BB, 1 2B, 1 3B
OF Andre Ethier, Dodgers – 2/4, 2 RBI, 1 BB
OF Josh Hamilton, Rangers – 2/4, 1 RBI, 1 run, 2 2B
SP Tommy Milone, A’s – 8 IP, 3 hits, 0 runs, 5 K
SP Matt Moore, Rays – 7 IP, 1 hit, 0 runs, 8 K, 3 BB
SP Matt Cain, Giants – 6 IP, 3 hits, 1 run, 8 K, & 2/3, 2 RBI, 1 2B at the plate
All of the stats by each player were what they had in games Biking for Baseball attended. We were fortunate enough to be at the Ballpark in Arlington when the Mariners annihilated the Rangers 21-8, so that’s why Justin Smoak is an All Star. The B4B All Star team has more than the one obligated selection that the Mariners will send to KC.
Carlos Pena is also a B4B All Star for his 4 walk, 0 hit performance when we saw the Rays play at The Trop*. Matt Cain is a B4B All Star for both his pitching and hitting prowess. And Rangers back-up shortstop Alberto Gonzalez is a B4B All Star because we’ve seen A LOT of poor offensive shortstops so far, and he actually had a good game in the blow-out in Arlington. We’ve seen Tulowitzki twice this season, and his numbers in those games weren’t as good as Gonzalez. Crazy.
*Moneyball!
We’re headed to KC and so are these guys. How do you think they’ll do against the All Star teams voted on by the fans?