who initially said<\/a> he was \u201capprehensive\u201d about throwing, even volunteered before the game to take the ball, though he ultimately was not needed.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s tough. You\u2019re trying to be respectful of the organization\u2019s wishes. You\u2019re trying to take care of players. But you\u2019re also trying to get through a game,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThat\u2019s the most stressful part, especially when you don\u2019t have much margin for a long inning.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the answer?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s an existential (question),\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI just feel that the best players should be here, should want to play. But it\u2019s just the whole landscape has changed. That\u2019s the unfortunate part.\u201d<\/p>\n
Changed in which way?<\/p>\n
\u201cPlayers are just not interested in participating. And organizations, to be quite frank, aren\u2019t as interested in players participating,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI\u2019m not a decision-maker. You just get the roster and try to make do the best you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Managers in the World Baseball Classic often encounter similar problems. Major-league executives, worried only about their own clubs, always try to protect their pitchers as much possible, not that they\u2019re particularly good at keeping arms healthy.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Rob Manfred, speaking Tuesday to the Baseball Writers Association of America, said teams now are manipulating the rule that makes pitchers who throw on the Sunday prior to the All-Star break ineligible for the ASG two days later.<\/p>\n
The Phillies\u2019 Zack Wheeler, left off the team originally, was a Sunday starter, then declined an invitation to participate after saying he would be willing to pitch, claiming he felt \u201cdisrespected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clear to me that teams are managing their pitching in a way to take advantage of the Sunday pitcher rule,\u201d Manfred said. \u201cI do think it\u2019s really important that we always reevaluate our approach to the All-Star Game in order to get the very, very best players actually participating in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
One possible solution would be to move the game from Tuesday to Wednesday, giving pitchers an additional day of recovery. But even then, certain pitchers might be hesitant to pitch, preferring the extra rest. And teams, as always, would seek to exercise caution.<\/p>\n
Take away a player\u2019s All-Star bonus if he is named to a team but fails to attend the game? Penalizing injured players that way would be unfair. Strip a player of All-Star designation, potentially damaging his Hall of Fame chances? The union would fight that one, too, particularly if the player had a reasonable excuse.<\/p>\n
But consider this:<\/p>\n
A year ago, some criticized the inclusion of Misiorowski on the NL team when he had made only five career starts. But Misiorowski pitched in the All-Star Game and acquitted himself well, throwing a scoreless inning.<\/p>\n
No one questioned The Miz\u2019s All-Star selection this year. He is the game\u2019s hardest thrower, and leads the majors with a 1.62 ERA. Initially, he was scheduled to pitch Sunday, ruling him out for the All-Star Game. Then the Brewers scratched him from that start and said he still would miss the ASG, citing arm fatigue.<\/p>\n
When will we see The Miz pitch in the All-Star Game again?<\/p>\n
At this rate, who knows?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 One more baserunner on this hot night, and National League manager Dave Roberts might have broken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-764386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}