Day 108 – All Star Game

I have to say that was a really good all-star game. Sure it was long and went into the early hrs of the morning (although for me that is my usual time anyways), but it was very entertaining. Its not like it was dragging along there were several good scoring opportunities for both teams throughout extras. It almost made me feel like I was still watching the Jays the way they were leaving runners on base and failing to get any hits w/RISP.

One of the big issues was the fact that had the game gone even 1 inning longer we very well may have seen a position player come into pitch. It is not that big a deal. How often does a baseball game go 15 innings? The Jays have had 1 so far this year. That was only the 2nd time in All-star history a game went that many innings and a game has never gone past the 15th. However, I do have a couple suggestions to avoid running into that situation:

1) If a pitcher is unable to pitch due to throwing a lot of pitches on Sun, then replace him on the roster. If a player is injured, they replace him, so shouldn’t they do the same thing w/a pitcher unable to pitch.
2) STOP trying to use all your players. I think it all started when Cito Gaston got heavily booed for not using Mike Mussina in the ’93 all-star game when it was in Mussina’s home ballpark of Baltimore. The whole reason Mussina was even warming up in the bullpen that night is another issue, but the point is managers now try every way possible to get every player in the game. Pitchers who are regularly starters are only going 1 inning and often the manager is using some of the closers for only 1 or 2 outs. Is it really asking that much to have a couple of the guys who are starters to throw 2 or dare I say even 3 innings. Since pitch counts are now the way of determining how long to leave a pitcher in, why not at least leave starting pitchers in for an extra inning if they say have a 10-pitch inning.

The fact is had this game only gone 9 innings both teams would have had plenty of pitchers unused and this would have been a non-issue. However, since it went a rare 15, and the teams were on their last pitchers it has been blown out of proportion.

While I’m on the topic of pitchers in the all-star game, when are they going to recognize set-up relievers. I know there has been the odd non-closer reliever selected, but the fact is the way the game is now played, basically every team has a guy who is specifically a set-up guy (or at least a LH and RH set-up guy). So should there not be at least one on each team. Instead of having the players vote in 3 relievers which always turn out to be closers, why not have them vote for 2 closers and 1 reliever or even leave the 3 closers but add in a vote for a reliever. This year that reliever for the AL very well could have been Scott Downs.