Giants Send 4 to All-Star Game, A's Get One

It's been a while since the Giants had three starters in an All-Star game, but that's exactly what they'll have at the annual mid-summer classic in Kansas City.

Posey Led NL in Votes

Pablo Sandoval was voted in as the starting 3rd basemen, Buster Posey as the starting catcher and Melky Cabrera as a starting outfielder. Those names really shouldn't surprise anyone, as they were at the top of the voting at their respective positions for a while now, but the one that does kind of surprise me is Pablo Sandoval. He's been solid when he's been out there, but to miss a month in the first half and still get voted in takes some help on the fans behalf. Melky was leading the league in hitting for a good portion of the first half and certainly deserved the nod, so it was good to see the fans show up late and help get him in. Buster has been the leading catcher for the NL since balloting opened up (finishing with an NL-high 7.6M votes) so he'll be attending his first career All-Star game as a starter. The big surprise to me though, was that Tony LaRussa didn't pick any other Giants pitchers to join Matt Cain. Matty became very much a potential starter for the NL after his perfect game last month, but I'd say both Bumgarner and Vogelsong were deserving as well as Sergio Romo and possibly even Santiago Casilla.


Across the bay, the A's have had an up and down season with a lot of injuries, and will be sending just Ryan Cook, their new young closer to Kansas City for Tuesday's game. Cook has become the A's most dependable bullpen arm, and has a 1.46 ERA and 0.92 WHIP heading into the break. He's also closed out 8 of 11 save attempts and sports a strikeout ratio of a batter per inning. Still, this selection really surprised me. I only expected the A's to send one player to the All-Star game, but I thought it would have been Josh Reddick, who enters the break hitting .265 with 20 HR's, 42 RBI and 8 stolen bases. Not that Cook hasn't been deserving, but he's a rookie with a half-year of experience while Reddick is on pace for about 40 jacks!