I just got back from the All-Star Game press conference in which Jim Leyland and Bruce Bochy announced their starting pitchers and lineups. As Aaron noted, we get Scherzer vs. Harvey and a couple of lineups with which you could quibble, I suppose, if you wanted to, but what’s the point, really? Go outside and play. Do something productive.
Things of random interest to me during the press conference:
- Brian Kenny of MLB Network emceed it. When we learned it would be Max Scherzer starting, I was hoping Kenny -- who has built a cottage industry of dismissing the pitcher win as a useful statistic -- would go to great lengths to avoid mentioning that the most talked-about thing with Scherzer this year has been his wins. Kenny didn’t mention it.
- Jim Leyland did, though. A couple of times. And not just Scherzer’s wins, but when he was asked about why Hiroki Kuroda wasn’t named to the team despite his great ERA, Leyland said it’s be impossible for him to have left Chris Tillman off given that he’s won 11 games. I think Kenny had to sit down for that.
- Phillies Chairman Bill Giles is the honorary NL President. Jackie Autry is the honorary AL President. Each of them -- along with Bruce Bochy and Jim Leyland -- gave considerable lip service to the notion of the All-Star Game determining home field advantage in the World Series. They all love it. I had to sit down for that.
- Bochy had the line of the presser. When asked if Matt Harvey’s blister is going to be a problem for the All-Star Game, Bochy said he spoke with Terry Collins about it and assured him that Harvey is “gonna be limited to 100-120 pitches tomorrow night.”
- Someone asked both managers about the “cloud” the Biogenesis scandal has cast over the All-Star Game. Know what? I’ve been here two days. Basically no one is talking about Biogenesis. There’s enough going on. I sorta wish Bochy or Leyland had said “well, son, it wasn’t casting any cloud until your question,” but they were more diplomatic than I am.
So that was the presser. On to some player interviews. Gonna ask some guys what kind of tree they’d be, were they a tree. Hoping someone says “shagbark.”