Jamie Mottram's Sports Blog - www.misterirrelevant.com

With this year's All-Star teams being announced shortly, let's take this opportunity to tout the best players on our favorite teams. First up, my Baltimore Orioles:

Brian Roberts -- The AL's best second baseman and, now that Miguel Tejada is injured/regressing, the O's best player (at least until Nick Markakis fully develops). Too bad he's getting killed in the fan balloting by Placido Polanco, Robinson Cano, etc., etc.

Erik Bedard -- His ERA down to 3.36 after breaking out in '06 with 15 wins for a losing team, and he's striking out an absurd number of hitters (on pace for 268) .

Jeremy Guthrie -- My early choice for AL Rookie of the Year, and his ERA is down to 2.45. That's top five amongst all MLB starters and second in the AL.

Of course, it's a pipe dream that a team this bad would send three cats to the All-Star Game. Plus, there are tons of AL starting pitchers having great first halves, so getting either Bedard or Guthrie in is unlikely, let alone both of them. But a fan can dream.

Next up: my Washington Nationals. This should be good. And by "good," I mean horrifying.

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• #2 Comment from greta2632 
  7/2/07 12:31 PM | Permalink

  I'm pretty excited that BRob won the player vote, since the fan voting once again proved...idiotic.
  I really thought Bedard had a chance of going or at least being on the "final ballot".
  I guess he has only his teammates to blame.
• #1 Comment from ajohnsonterp 
  7/1/07 7:34 AM | Permalink

  Roberts should start. Don't think there's going to be space for both Orioles pitchers, not with two spots ticketed for the Royals and Rangers and both likely to be relievers.
  
  I picked Bedard over Guthrie because of his ill strikeout numbers. Snubs or not ... the All-Star Game is, on some level, about who you really want to see. I'd rather see Bedard do his best Pedro in '99 impression than Jeremy Guthrie keep riding the karma train into San Francisco.
  
  http://journals.aol.com/deskblog/LineupCard/entries/2007/07/01/my-all-star-picks/1735