Last Night in Baseball: A long time coming
There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to handle themselves.
That's why we're here to help, though, by sifting through the previous days' games, and figuring out what you missed, but shouldn't have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Hello It's Me
Memorial Day Weekend is upon us, which means it's time to crank up the Yacht Rock Radio and listen to some smooth tunes by the likes of Kenny Loggins and Todd Rundgren.
And look at the Nationals, sending us into the holiday weekend on a high note like they were Michael McDonald.
After the Braves took an early 2-0 lead on back-to-back homers, Keibert Ruiz got the Nats on the board in the bottom of the first inning. This wasn't an ordinary RBI double, either.
For the first time in his MLB career, Ruiz was playing in front of his parents, who made the trip to Washington from Venezuela.
Ruiz has appeared in 450 games since making his debut for the Dodgers in 2020, and his parents had tried to see him four different times earlier before their visas were approved this year.
The 26-year-old catcher had another RBI in the fourth inning that broke up a 5-5 tie, though the Braves battled back to send it to extras. In the 10th inning, Amed Rosario stepped up to the plate for his first at-bat in a week and brought in the game-winning run for the home team, who have now won five in a row.
Rosario had been out since last Friday after cutting his leg on a table at the team's hotel. (Strange injury, but maybe he's a Bills fan.)
His return, and Ruiz showing out for his parents, were the highlights of the hottest stretch yet for Washington this season.
On the other hand, it was a tough loss for the Braves, who have lost three of four since finally getting above .500. Fortunately for them, reinforcements are coming: Former MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. is set to make his 2025 debut Friday night. Vivas' first MLB dinger
Jorbit Vivas had to wait a long time for his first homer in the majors. He signed as an international free agent with the Dodgers all the way back in 2017, and was traded to the Yankees in the Trey Sweeney deal in 2023. He was brought to the majors in mid-July 2024, and optioned back down without ever being put into a game; it happened to him again at the start of the 2025 season, when he was called up to take Trent Grisham's roster spot while he was on paternity leave.
Vivas got another chance — an actual one this time — when Jazz Chisholm Jr. landed on the IL. The 24-year-old infielder hasn't hit much at all in the 17 games he's now appeared in — he entered play on Thursday batting .156/.250/.188 — but he got a hit that made a difference against the Rangers.
Vivas took Nathan Eovaldi deep in the bottom of the fifth, a solo shot that gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead … and the only offense either team would see all afternoon.
Eovaldi was excellent otherwise, allowing just four other hits and one walk across six innings, in which he also struck out six Yankees hitters. Too bad for the righty and the Rangers, though, is that Carlos Rodon was even better: He tossed six innings himself, but they were scoreless ones, with eight strikeouts against four baserunners. Five scoreless innings combined out of the team's bullpens later, and New York held on for the win and a sweep of Texas. Astros party like it's 2017
As much fun as it is to see young players experience career firsts, it's also worth celebrating when veterans put together old-school performances (and honestly, there's a sense of relief, too, that Father Time hasn't caught up quite yet).
Jose Altuve and Lance McCullers Jr., the longest-tenured Astros, did that on Thursday night in a 9-2 win over the Mariners. Altuve knocked two shots out of the park to end a 20-game HR drought.
Meanwhile, McCullers struck out eight batters, his most in nearly three years. Although he didn't get the win, McCullers still went longer (4.1 innings) and threw more pitches (91) than in his previous three starts this season.
Altuve, who turned 35 earlier this month, hadn't even had an RBI in May before his four-RBI night. He had also been on pace for his lowest slugging percentage of his career until then. We'll see if Thursday night was simply a throwback game for Altuve, or if, like the Astros' theme weekend, The Force has awakened. Even the security at Coors Field is struggling
First, the setup:
There are two ways to approach making a joke about this happening to Johan Rojas, who was batting just .259/.316/.341 for the Phillies in 34 games this season at the time of this case of mistaken identity. You could be like all the amateur comedians on social media saying, "The guards are right, though, Rojas isn't a big-league player."
There's a problem there, however: As poor as Rojas' season has been, it's still significantly better than what the Rockies are hitting as a team. Colorado is batting .219/.286/.362 even with Coors Field's inherent boost to offense, giving them an OPS+ of 74 that's 10 points lower than Rojas' own.
So, the solution is to instead say that you can't blame the guards for this, they simply don't know what a baseball player is even supposed to look like anymore. This one is on the house, no need to credit us after you one-up your buddy's bit. Gavin Sheets vs. the Blue Jays
The Padres entered the series finale with the Blue Jays as losers of their last five, as well as the recipients of a 14-0 drubbing at the hands of Toronto the previous game. Padres first baseman Gavin Sheets did his best to make sure there wasn't a repeat of those events, as he went deep in the top of the second with a two-run shot to put San Diego up 2-0 …
… and then tied it up 4-4 in the ninth with a second two-run blast:
Both times, it was center fielder Jackson Merrill on base for Sheets to drive in, and good thing, too, because the Padres couldn't seem to get anything else going outside of a double by Luis Arraez; he was stranded, however.
Sheets would once again come to the rescue in extra innings. With the score tied 5-5 in the top of the 11th, he'd single on a line drive to center, scoring someone besides Merrill — Manny Machado.
Alas, it was not to be for the Padres, despite Sheets' many efforts. The Jays would score two in the bottom of the 11th, with Daulton Varsho hitting a game-tying triple and then scoring on a Nathan Lukes' single. "A" for effort for the Padres' first baseman, though. Sadly, effort is not the same thing as a win, so San Diego has now dropped six in a row.
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New York Times
23 minutes ago
- New York Times
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Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
MLB Power Rankings: Another shake-up in the top 3? Plus an All-Star pitch for each team
By Grant Brisbee, Chad Jennings and Levi Weaver Every week, we ask a selected group of our baseball writers — local and national — to rank the teams from first to worst. Here are the collective results. We're over a third of the way through the season, and a lot of the surprising performances from the beginning of the season are now more in line with what we expected them to be. Remember when we had to take the Angels seriously for a couple of weeks? Remember when the Twins were lousy and irrelevant? Things can really change a lot in this game before we even get to the season's midway point. Voting for MLB's All-Star ballot will open later this week, so in this edition of the Major League Baseball ranking of powers, we're making a case for one All-Star on each team. Some are more straightforward and some more surprising, but all are worth highlighting. Record: 36-24 Last Power Ranking: 3 Make him an All-Star: C Will Smith Shohei Ohtani leads the league in home runs and slugging percentage. Freddie Freeman leads the league in batting average and OPS+. They're obviously going to the All-Star Game. It's boring, and the Angels and Braves should respectively feel bad about it. Smith has been an All-Star in each of the past two seasons, though, and now he's having his best season yet. That's all Dodgers, baby, and they should feel extremely proud about the career he's had with them. I guess they can also feel OK about Ohtani and Freeman, but it seems a little gauche to 'acquire the best players from other teams.' Anyone can beat Contra with 30 lives. Let's see you do it with three, nerds. — Grant Brisbee Advertisement Record: 38-22 Last Power Ranking: 4 Make him an All-Star: SP Kodai Senga (but not OF Juan Soto) The National League has a crowded field at first base and shortstop, but Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor are firmly in those conversations. That's hardly a surprise. More surprising is that multiple Mets starters — most of them, really — are making a case for inclusion. A strong month could make any one of Senga, Clay Holmes, David Peterson or Tylor Megill into an All-Star. (Senga currently leads the league in ERA.) Most surprising of all is that Soto is not even close to being one of the top six or seven NL outfielders (by fWAR, he's No. 16). Soto might be voted into the starting lineup, but his first two months suggest he'll be blocking someone more deserving. — Chad Jennings Record: 40-21 Last Power Ranking: 5 Make him an All-Star: C Dillon Dingler Even on a Tigers team that we knew was going to be pretty good, there have been some surprises. You could make an All-Star case for both Spencer Torkelson and Javier Báez, which is not a sentence I expected to be writing in June — or any other month, to be honest. But let's take a look at the fWAR leaderboards for catchers this year. Cal Raleigh is obviously well in the lead (3.8). But the next AL catcher on the list? It's Dingler, at 1.9 That might help him, though it's going to be tricky to sneak all the deserving Tigers onto the roster. — Levi Weaver Record: 36-22 Last Power Ranking: 1 Make him an All-Star: OF Aaron Judge (and a bunch of other guys) Start with the obvious, because Judge again looks like an MVP, but the Yankees are a very good team with a bunch of legitimate stars putting up All-Star numbers. Max Fried has been perhaps even better than advertised and should be an All-Star, First baseman Paul Goldschmidt is back among the league leaders in fWAR, Anthony Volpe is part of a deep pool at shortstop, Cody Bellinger is a good week away from being one of the top six outfielders in WAR, Austin Wells could very well be the second-best catcher in the AL, Luke Weaver has been elite again since moving back into the closer role, and starter Carlos Rodón has been nearly as good as Fried by several measures (and with a lot more strikeouts). There's a reason the Yankees consistently end up toward the top of our Power Rankings. — Jennings Advertisement Record: 37-22 Last Power Ranking: 6 Make him an All-Star: C Carson Kelly Obviously, Pete Crow-Armstrong is already in. He doesn't need our help. I'd like to give a little push to a guy who has played for five teams in 10 years and never once sniffed the midseason classic. This year, he's hitting .272/.396/.553 (.948 OPS) — all career highs, and among catchers with at least 100 plate appearances, that OPS is tied for third, behind Cal Raleigh (1.016) and Iván Herrera (.998), tied with Will Smith. Of note, Herrera's BABIP is an unsustainable .373, and Smith's is an even-higher .387 — you could make the argument that Kelly is having the best season by any NL catcher. So I will. He is. Put him in the All-Star game. — Weaver Record: 36-23 Last Power Ranking: 2 Make him an All-Star: SP Jesús Luzardo Kyle Schwarber should be an All-Star. Zack Wheeler, of course. Probably Trea Turner (though the shortstop position is crowded). Bryce Harper and Bryson Stott are also in the mix at first and second. But we're singling out Luzardo to highlight just how good he's been. Trading for him this winter was a mild gamble — Luzardo had been erratic in his career — but he's been good enough to not only make the All-Star team but also potentially start for the National League. Wheeler, Paul Skenes and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (among others) are also in that NL starter conversation, but Luzardo's been up there among the best of the best. An elite June could put him not only on the team but also on the mound in the first inning. — Jennings Record: 34-24 Last Power Ranking: 8 Make him an All-Star: DH Gavin Sheets There are more worthy candidates, obviously, from Manny Machado to almost anyone in the rotation or bullpen. But Sheets just had a dreadful season on the 2024 White Sox, one of the worst baseball teams in history, and now he's thriving as a jack-of-all-trades on a contending team. He has about a quarter as many home runs (11) as his old team does so far this season (47), which has to feel pretty good. Advertisement It's a career arc that makes me happy, and we need more positivity in this wacky world. Sheets doesn't actually deserve an All-Star nod, but he at least deserves a mention in a light article about All-Star nods. — Brisbee Record: 33-27 Last Power Ranking: 7 Make him an All-Star: RP Tyler Rogers Rogers might be only the third-best reliever in his own bullpen this year, after Camilo Doval and Randy Rodríguez, but he's also having an outstanding season. He's been one of the most effective relievers since coming into the league seven years ago, and even if he were just a boring ol' right-hander, he'd be worthy of special recognition. But every pitch he throws is a reminder that this is a strange, beautiful and ridiculous sport. That gets him bonus points, and an All-Star nod is overdue. Send him up against Aaron Judge in the eighth inning of a close game, and let the world watch with rapt attention and/or bemusement. — Brisbee Record: 32-26 Last Power Ranking: 10 Make him an All-Star: SS J.P. Crawford A good bit would be to pick the shortstop as the All-Star from every American League team and let manager Aaron Boone figure it out. Put some of the shortstops in the outfield, like 10-U all-star teams are forced to. Not our problem. With Crawford, though, he's not just deserving because of a strong career to this point (he's in the career 20+ WAR club, which is chock full of players the average baseball fan has heard of), but also because his rebound season has been one of the most important developments for the 2025 Mariners. Cal 'Big Dumper' Raleigh is getting the headlines because of his league-leading power, and rightfully so, but Crawford being a valuable two-way threat again has been just as important. — Brisbee Record: 27-31 Last Power Ranking: 9 Make him an All-Star: SP Chris Sale Advertisement Matt Olson has been good, but first base is loaded in the NL. Marcell Ozuna can still hit, but Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Schwarber feel like the league's top DHs. Maybe Austin Riley? But third base, too, is crowded with better candidates. Both Braves catchers have been excellent, but they've split time. There are a lot of All-Star candidates in Atlanta, but few are sure things. It's hard to go wrong, then, with Sale. His late-career resurgence continues. Might as well make him an All-Star for the ninth time before teammate Spencer Schwellenbach gets his first. — Jennings Record: 32-27 Last Power Ranking: 13 Make him an All-Star: SS Jeremy Peña Peña had one of the most conspicuous beginnings to a big-league career in the past decade, if not in baseball history. He took over for a franchise icon and clubhouse leader at one of the most important positions in the sport, and all he did was immediately win a Gold Glove and a World Series MVP. Nobody expected him to do that every year, but the counterpoint is that he'd never not done it. Maybe he'd just keep getting better. Instead, he had a couple aggressively good-not-great seasons, where he accumulated the WAR totals of a perennial All-Star without the acclaim or flashy numbers. The flashy numbers are here now. It's time to retroactively reimburse him some of the acclaim. He's been that guy the whole time. — Brisbee Record: 33-26 Last Power Ranking: 12 Make him an All-Star: UTIL Brendan Donovan Some writers never learned the difference between Tommy Edman, Nolan Gorman and Brendan Donovan. There's no sense naming names*, even though it's lazy to conflate every multi-positional Cardinals infielder with a name that ends with -an. When the Cardinals call up Paulie Dillman, Brody Corklan and/or Stephen Manovan, these writers will get even lazier and assume they're all similar players, too. Well, maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. Do some research. It's clearer now, though. Edman is the one on the Dodgers. Gorman is the struggling youngster. Donovan is the All-Star. He's the Steven Kwan of middle infielders, and if you're thinking his batting average is inflated, check out his xBA (expected batting average) on Baseball Savant. The average is right where he should be, and it's just one of the reasons he'd be a worthy All-Star. — Brisbee * mostly talking about myself here Advertisement Record: 31-27 Last Power Ranking: 11 Make him an All-Star: SP Joe Ryan Harrison Bader is having the best season of his career. Byron Buxton is — save for one concussion IL stint — staying healthy. Jhoan Durán has a sub-1.00 ERA. And yet, the player who has provided the most value for the Twins this year is Ryan, who is 5-2 with a 2.57 ERA in 10 starts. Pair that with Pablo López, Bailey Ober and the occasionally dominant Chris Paddack, and the Twins have a pretty reasonable start at a playoff rotation. Now we just gotta get Royce Lewis' slump figured out. — Weaver Record: 30-29 Last Power Ranking: T-21 Make him an All-Star: 1B Jonathan Aranda One of the best hitters in baseball plays for the Rays. Can you name him? (Hint: We kind of gave it away already.) Aranda ranks eighth in the majors in wRC+, and by that measure, he's been the fourth-best hitter in the American League. He's spent parts of three seasons in the big leagues, but this has been his breakout, and he's settled in at first base (after playing some second, third and outfield earlier in his career). Of course, it's always hard to ignore the Rays' pitching, and they're top 10 in ERA again this season. Starter Drew Rasmussen has been their best pitcher, but Aranda's been their most deserving All-Star.— Jennings Record: 31-28 Last Power Ranking: 15 Make him an All-Star: INF Ernie Clement There are a lot of good first basemen in the American League this year, and yes, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is one of them, but he's not a slam-dunk All-Star given Paul Goldschmidt's resurgence, Jonathan Aranda's breakout and Spencer Torkelson's return to relevance. Maybe Vlad will make it. Maybe he won't. If he doesn't, Alejandro Kirk could maybe be the AL's backup catcher (not a ton of great choices after Cal Raleigh), or one of the Blue Jays veteran starters — either Bassitt, Kevin Gausman or José Berríos — would be a solid choice. But the Blue Jays' leader in both bWAR and fWAR is, oddly enough, utility man Clement, who's been a slightly above-average hitter while playing all four infield positions. Will he be the team's All-Star representative? Surely not. But this has been one of the harder-to-predict teams in baseball, so maybe. — Jennings Advertisement Record: 33-28 Last Power Ranking: T-21 Make him an All-Star: 2B Brice Turang It took me a while to decide, but with apologies to Rhys Hoskins, Freddie Peralta and Chad Patrick (who is having a pretty brilliant season under the radar), I'm advocating for a guy with an OPS in the low .700s and fewer than a half-dozen home runs. Why? Because even without flashy production numbers at the plate, Turang is currently the Brewers' most valuable player by bWAR. Turang's skill set: further differentiating the MLB All-Star Game from its NBA counterpart by showing off a little thing we call 'defense' — he's the reigning NL Platinum Glove Award winner. — Weaver Record: 28-31 Last Power Ranking: 14 Make him an All-Star: INF Gerardo Perdomo One of my favorite tools on one of my favorite websites, Baseball-Reference dot com, is the section for Wins Above Average for every position on every team. It gives you a great thumbnail sketch of why teams are flailing or thriving, and it also tells you things like 'Few teams are getting as much out of (position) as (team).' Few teams are getting as much out of the shortstop position as the Diamondbacks, and they're getting it from a chatty, charismatic leader who can't shut up. There's still time for the Diamondbacks to live up to their preseason expectations, even if it will be tougher without Corbin Burnes. If they get there, Perdomo will have a lot to do with it. — Brisbee Record: 31-29 Last Power Ranking: 16 Make him an All-Star: SP Kris Bubic Hey, you wanna guess who leads all qualified pitchers with a 1.43 ERA? Bubic. How about the bWAR leaderboard for pitchers, at 3.5? Bubic again. Know who leads the league in strikeouts? OK, that's Garrett Crochet (Red Sox) and McKenzie Gore (Nats), with 101. Bubic is barely in the Top 10, at 79. Ignore that. Advertisement But in a starting rotation that features All-Stars Michael Wacha (2015), Michael Lorenzen (2023), Seth Lugo (2024) and Cole Ragans (2024) — and two of last year's top-five Cy Young Award vote-getters (Lugo and Ragans) — Bubic has been the Royals' best starter … so far. (Keep an eye on Noah Cameron, who is 2-1 with a 1.05 ERA in four starts.) — Weaver Record: 32-26 Last Power Ranking: 17 Make him an All-Star: RP Hunter Gaddis It's easy to be overlooked when you're in the same bullpen as Emmanuel Clase, so if you're not a Guardians fan, maybe you're not aware that Gaddis has been one of the game's best relievers for a while now. Since the beginning of last year, among relievers who have thrown at least 80 innings, would you like to guess who has the lowest ERA? OK, it's still Clase. But his 1.45 is only 0.01 better than Gaddis' 1.46. This year, he's at 1.14, with 35 strikeouts and nine walks in 23 2/3 innings. Seems like an All-Star to me. — Weaver Record: 29-32 Last Power Ranking: 20 Make him an All-Star: SP Andrew Abbott Are you aware that Abbott is 5-0 with a 1.51 ERA? His 47 2/3 innings aren't yet enough to qualify for the ERA title, but if you lower the threshold to 45 innings, that 1.51 mark would be the best in the NL — and second best in baseball, behind Kris Bubic (1.43). Some of these entries are under-the-radar guys we think deserve a second look, but in the case of Abbott, it feels like a slam dunk. Abbott has been the Reds' most valuable player by bWAR (2.4) — even better than Hunter Greene (though let's see if that holds up now that Greene is off the IL). — Weaver Record: 29-31 Last Power Ranking: 18 Make him an All-Star: INF Josh Smith A hitter? On this Rangers team? OK, listen: part of this is me trying to correct an oversight last year. Check out these two stat lines from last year's All-Star break! Advertisement .293/.392/.469 (.861 OPS) in 339 plate appearances .270/.355/.479 (.834 OPS) in 358 plate appearances One of those guys was an All-Star. (The second one. It was Corey Seager.) The first one was Smith, who had himself quite a year as the Rangers' super-utility Swiss Army knife. But this isn't just based on last year's performance. Smith ranks fifth on the team in bWAR — trailing only Wyatt Langford among position players — and has filled in admirably while Seager has spent time on the IL. The biggest impediments to Smith's case this year? Nathan Eovaldi, Tyler Mahle, Jacob deGrom and Langford, all of whom would seem more likely to get the nod. — Weaver Record: 29-33 Last Power Ranking: 15 Make him an All-Star: C Carlos Narváez The Red Sox have been disappointing, but there's a solid case for at least six of their players to make the All-Star team. Rafael Devers, Garrett Crochet and Alex Bregman — depending on his health — could be shoo-ins, while outfielder Wilyer Abreu and closer Aroldis Chapman have All-Star caliber numbers as well (but could be crowded out). The biggest surprise is definitely Narváez, who got a chance to play only because Connor Wong got hurt and now is jockeying with the Tigers' Dillon Dingler for the second-highest fWAR among AL catchers. Cal Raleigh most certainly deserves to be the AL's starting catcher, but his backup looks like a toss-up, with Narváez one of several unexpected candidates. — Jennings Record: 28-31 Last Power Ranking: T-24 Make him an All-Star: OF James Wood We'll single out Wood because he's not only a deserving All-Star, but also has been good enough potentially to make the NL starting lineup. But really, the three key pieces of the Nationals' young core — Wood, shortstop CJ Abrams and starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore — are each in the All-Star mix. Abrams faces a deep pool of potential shortstops, and Gore is on a predictably long list of starting pitchers, but Gore does lead the NL in strikeouts, which is pretty hard to dismiss. The Nationals are a pretty bad team with two or three of the best young players in the game. — Jennings Advertisement Record: 22-36 Last Power Ranking: T-26 Make him an All-Star: DH Ryan O'Hearn The Orioles have been awful, and Gunnar Henderson has so far played a bit below his standards, so Baltimore might have to go outside of the box to find an All-Star. O'Hearn would be a fun one, having emerged from obscurity to become a really nice hitter. He's been arguably the best DH in the American League this year (though Devers feels like the more likely starter). Another notable Oriole to consider: Jackson Holliday. The second base position is pretty weak in the AL, and Holliday just finished a terrific May. If he keeps that pace, he'd be a compelling candidate at 21 years old. — Jennings Record: 27-32 Last Power Ranking: T-24 Make him an All-Star: SP Tyler Anderson Anderson has been selected for the All-Star Game twice, including last season, so it's not like he needs a nod to be the cherry on top of a long, successful major-league career. And it's not like the Angels are without other candidates — Zach Neto leads the team in WAR, and he's quietly developed into an excellent all-around shortstop, if not a star. Mostly, though, I love that Anderson exists and can still get hitters out with command, control and deception. It's a welcome reminder in the Driveline era, where every Tom, Dick and Harry can throw 99 with reverse seam-shifted wake break. There should be one location guy on every All-Star team, just as an appreciation of the location arts. — Brisbee Record: 22-38 Last Power Ranking: T-26 Make him an All-Star: SP Andrew Heaney Yeah, I know. Paul Skenes. But do you think he needs our help? How about Heaney? He's quietly putting together what is shaping up to be the best season of his 12-year career. His 1.4 bWAR is already the third highest of his career, and it's just barely June. His 3.39 ERA and 0.9 WPA are both second only to his 2022 season with the Dodgers (but he only made 14 starts that year). Advertisement The problem here? It turns out there are a lot of starting pitchers in baseball. I'm not sure the NL roster will have room for two of them from the Pirates. Well, we tried. — Weaver Record: 23-37 Last Power Ranking: 23 Make him an All-Star: SS Jacob Wilson On May 13, the Athletics went into Dodger Stadium and whooped the Dodgers, 11-1. They were two games over .500 and 1 1/2 games out of first place. There was an honest chance of a postseason run that made everyone in the press box say, 'Why does this entire city smell like a warm, uncut tomato? It's not a bad smell. It might even be a good one. It's just really strange.' Since then, they've gone 1-17 and been outscored 62-144. There are no more beautiful postseason dreams. All that's left is Wilson hitting the snot out of the ball and playing at an MVP level. Reward him with his first All-Star selection. It probably won't be his last. — Brisbee Record: 23-35 Last Power Ranking: 28 Make him an All-Star: C Liam Hicks The Marlins are tough because the immediate instinct is to pick one of their outfielders. Kyle Stowers and Dane Myers have been their best players, and the best players should be All-Stars. Right? The problem is neither Stowers nor Myers ranks top 10 — much less top six — in WAR among NL outfielders, so getting them on the team might be tough. But Hicks would be fun. He's a Rule 5 pick having a nice year, and it's always nice to have a third catcher on an All-Star team. Ultimately, the path of least resistance might be to simply pick a Marlins pitcher and stick him in the bullpen. So, congratulations, set-up man Anthony Bender! You might be going to the All-Star Game! — Jennings Record: 18-42 Last Power Ranking: 29 Make him an All-Star: INF Miguel Vargas Advertisement I really wanted to say Luis Robert Jr. here, since he's leading the league in stolen bases with 21. But he could have been closer to 40 if he were hitting better than .180; we can't pick him. So let's scan the rest of the White Sox roster. Andrew Benintendi leads the team with a respectable .753 OPS, but he's not putting up All-Star numbers. Vargas leads the team with eight home runs. Martín Pérez is having a good year, but he's on the 60-day IL. How about Shane Smith, who has a 2.67 ERA in 11 starts? Well, he's also 1-3 and has 54 strikeouts and 23 walks in 57 innings. He has hit seven batters, which leads the league. We can't put him on a mound to face the league's biggest stars. This is not easy. Let's go with Vargas. Why not. — Weaver Record: 10-50 Last Power Ranking: 30 Make him an All-Star: SP Kyle Freeland Freeland has been a loyal Rockie. He's a local kid, from Denver, playing for his childhood team, and he's one good season away from being the best pitcher in franchise history. His Fielding Independent Pitching is 3.68, which is a full two runs below his miserable ERA. Let him doff his cap to polite applause before the All-Star game. He's had a fine career that isn't unworthy of a little recognition. He doesn't deserve this hellscape of a season. No one does. — Brisbee (Top photo of Aaron Judge: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
