​Happy Sunday. Dylan Cease will be the AL starter in the All-Star Game, as John Schneider has decided. The benefit of being the All-Star manager is giving your own players a little treat, though Cease certainly deserves the honor. Dave Stieb and Roy Halladay are among the other Blue Jays who have started an All-Star Game, which is pretty impressive company to keep. Cristopher Sanchez will take the mound for the NL. Nolan Perry delivered a solid inning in the Futures Game. Jo Jo Parker went 1-for-2 with a double and a flyout. The AL won 6-1, and Parker contributed a run and an RBI.
Here are today’s lineups for the final game of the first half. It would be nice to head into the break with a win. No Springer today. I’m glad Clase is getting a chance to show what he can do; he’s been excellent so far, hitting .308/.400/.769 in just 15 plate appearances. Sean Keys is also getting into the action. I’d like to see more of him. His numbers aren’t as strong yet, but it’s early; he’s at .207/.207/.345 in 29 plate appearances. The eye is there—he recorded 39 walks in 286 minor-league at-bats, so the walk rate should come with time.
Blue JaysPadre: Ernie Clement—2B; Fernando Tatis—RF; Nathan Lukes—RF; Jackson Merrill—CF; Vladimir Guerrero—DH; Xander Bogaerts—SS; Kazuma Okamoto—3B; Manny Machado—DH; Dalton Varsho—CF; Gavin Sheets—LF; Brandon Valenzuela—C; Ty France—1B; Jake Cronenworth—2B; Jonatan Clase—LF; Rodolfo Duran—C; Andres Gimenez—SS; Sung-Mun Song—3B; Kevin Gausman—RHP; German Marquez—RHP.
I meant to mention this earlier: July marks my 18th year writing on the site. It doesn’t feel that long, aside from the days I stare at a blank screen and see a reflection of my mind. I’ve told this story before, but I’ll share it again. I volunteered to help when Hugo would be away for a couple of months. I didn’t know what I’d signed up for. My first day in the game thread, Mariners fans overwhelmed us. I barely knew how the site worked. There were posts that should have been deleted immediately, and I wasn’t sure how to do it. I recall someone posting clips of a plane crash into a building, which wasn’t something we needed.
After the game, the manager of the baseball sites emailed me: “We do a recap after games.” I replied that I’d been on the site for six months and hadn’t seen a recap. “We do a recap after games,” he said, so I wrote one. A day or two later, he emailed me again: “You should do a morning post.” I hadn’t seen one before, but I started doing morning posts. He waited a week or so and then suggested, “An afternoon post is a good idea.” I think I pushed a bit, perhaps using language not allowed on the site, hinting that I was doing three posts a day for better SEO. It’s been a long, winding road, but here we are after 18 years.