The mid-summer classic is over a week away. But the MLB already announced which players were invited. <\/p>\n
The All-Star Game will be in Atlanta and played on July 15th. <\/p>\n
Chicago Cubs<\/p>\n
Amid an outstanding first half and leading the NL Central by several games, the Chicago Cubs have three representatives. <\/p>\n
Outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong (PCA) will be starting. The 23 year-old is enjoying a breakout campaign — batting .272 and hammering 23 home runs. Combined with an excellent glove and 27 stolen bases, PCA is a serious contender to win the NL MVP. <\/p>\n
Outfielder Kyle Tucker is also starting for the NL. An off-season acquisition from Houston, Tucker has elevated the Cubs lineup. So far, he’s batting .284 with 17 home runs and an OBP of .389. That means even when he doesn’t get hits, he still gets on base a lot with walks. <\/p>\n
For the Cubs’ sake, they hope to resign Tucker, who’s a free agent this off-season. The Ricketts family better be prepared to spend close to $500 million to keep him. <\/p>\n
Finally, starting pitcher Matthew Boyd of Chicago is a representative. He’s pitched great this year, with a 2.65 ERA. He’s been a saving grace — the Cubs starting pitching is a liability for the team, as they dealt with multiple injuries.<\/p>\n
Chicago White Sox<\/p>\n
The White Sox are sending rookie starting pitcher Shane Smith. He was let go by the Milwaukee Brewers this off-season, and the White Sox scooped him up. <\/p>\n
Last month, Smith looked like a Rookie of the Year contender. He had a 2.37 ERA and a healthy strike out to innings ratio. <\/p>\n
However, since Mid-June, it’s been brutal for Smith.<\/p>\n
His ERA has skyrocketed to 4.2, and hasn’t pitched longer four full innings. <\/p>\n
His last four starts: 12.0 ERA, and losses to St. Louis, Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks and even the Colorado Rockies — who are expected to break the all-time loss record this season. <\/p>\n
Still, Smith making the All-Star is a major accomplishment, and 4.2 isn’t horrible for a rookie. It’s just a minor disappointment because he started so well, and you’d hope it’s just a rough patch. <\/p>\n
Former White Sox pitcher Garrett Crochet had a similar experience. In his first year starting, Crochet’s ERA was over 5.0 in the early months. But he settled down, and finished with a 3.6 and was a top strike out pitcher. Chicago eventually traded Crochet to Boston for several of their top prospects. Meanwhile, Crochet signed a $150 million deal.<\/p>\n
However, Crochet was a first-round draft pick. Smith wasn’t well known until his early season breakout. <\/p>\n
St. Louis Cardinals<\/p>\n
The Cardinals have one representative: Brendan Donovan. The 28-year-old 2nd baseball is playing great: .296 batting average with 22 doubles and seven home runs. He leads the team in average and on-base percentage. <\/p>\n
This will be Donovan’s first All-Star game amid a successful four-year stint in St. Louis. He also won a Gold Glove in 2022. <\/p>\n
Pegged as a rebuilding year, the Cardinals have stayed alive in the playoff chase. <\/p>\n
St. Louis’ has lost some momentum in the Division race, as the Cubs lead them by 6.5 games. But the Cards are only a game back from the final Wild Card spot. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mid-summer classic is over a week away. But the MLB already announced which players were invited. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,4492,160,24,49,29,4,13669,35,3399,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-385243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brendan-donovan","10":"tag-cardinals","11":"tag-chicago-cubs","12":"tag-chicago-white-sox","13":"tag-kyle-tucker","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-mlb-all-star-game","16":"tag-pete-crow-armstrong","17":"tag-shane-smith","18":"tag-st-louis","19":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","20":"tag-stlouis","21":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115389483425539506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}