Mid-Day Update

Less on the links, more on the scores, and the All-Star teams made simple...

Baltimore v. Boston- 5-1 O's in the top of the 5th inning...should have put Brad Burgeson on the list of awesome starters going today. Boston looks lost, but it looks like it might take Baltimore 9 innings to score 10 runs instead of just two. Then again the Sox could come back, after all, 4 runs is nothing!

Washington v. Florida- 3-2 Nationals in the 7th. Another pitcher on my list goes down early. Josh Johnson gave up 5 hits and 4 walks in 3.1 innings of work (89 pitches and only 40 strikes). Somehow he only allowed 1 run, which was driven in by Jordan Zimmermann, the man taking the mound for the Nats this afternoon. Hanley did drive in a run for the Marlins, that's now 10 games in a row that he is credited with an RBI.

Tampa Bay v. Toronto- 3-0 Jays in the 8th. Shields v. Romero has lived up to its potential, with the younger Romero throwing only 89 pitches to record 7 K's 3 BB's and 4 hits against, not too bad. Shields has been just as efficient (7 innings 8 K's 1 BB 5 hits 2er) only the Jays strung together hits.

In other action...Mets v. Milwaukee is still 0-0 in the 4th, the Twins are up on the Royals (who have lost Mike Aviles for the next 9-12 months for Tommy John surgery) that score is 2-0, and Detroit-Oakland is 0-0 in the 1st.

Now, if only there was some advanced metric that combines offense and defense and we could use this to come up with a list of All-Star starters...HOLY COW WE CAN!

Ok, I will do it for you if you do not want to read the article! This is strictly based on RAR (Runs Above Replacement)

AL

C-Joe Mauer
1b-Kevin Youkilis
2b-Ian Kinsler
3b-Evan Longoria
SS-Jason Bartlett
OF-Ichiro
OF-Carl Crawford
and my favorite...OF-BEN ZOBRIST

NL

C-Brian McCann
1b-Albert Pujols
2b-Chase Utley
3b-Ryan Zimmerman
SS-Hanley Ramirez
OF-Matt Kemp
OF-Justin Upton
OF-Ryan Braun

Now that was easy!