Major League Baseball announced the rosters of the 2011 All-Star teams on Sunday. The Phillies will have at least four players representing them in the game, with Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Placido Polanco all earning All-Star selections.
The three aces have each had phenomenal seasons so far, and are the biggest reasons that the Phillies sit on top of the National League East at this point in the season. All three pitchers have at least 9 wins, and have earned run averages below 3.00. They have a combined 11 complete games (including four shutouts, all of which belong to Lee), and they’ve also combined for 359 strikeouts to just 65 combined walks. All three pitchers deserve to be in the game.
Polanco on the other hand has not had an All-Star caliber season. When the voters cast their ballots for the third-baseman, they must have only been looking at his statistics from April when hit .348 with two homeruns and 19 RBIs. After the first month of the season, he hit just .248 in May and .213 in June. After collecting nine extra-base hits in April, he has just six in the following months.
Three Phillies that might have been deserving of All-Star consideration are Ryan Howard, Antonio Bastardo, and Ryan Madson.
Howard has been the only true power threat in the Phillies lineup, and with 16 homeruns and 67 RBIs he has still found a way to be highly productive despite not having proper protection around him in the batting order for most of the season.
Bastardo has allowed just three runs on 11 hits in 30 innings of work out of the bullpen. He has collected four saves, and has been one of the most consistent and effective relievers in all of baseball.
The same could be said for Ryan Madson, who has stepped in as the team’s closer for most of the season, and collected 15 saves in 16 opportunities. He’s finally fulfilling the potential that the Phillies have thought he had all along.
