All star game and second half thoughts

Before I get to what I'd like to see in the seasons second half I want to go over this all-star game nonsense. AL manager Joe Girardi opted to bypass Joakim Soria in favor of one of his guys and another less talented pitcher. Should the Yankees make the World Series this decision cost his team home field advantage. I'm convinced he probably feels he made the right call and I'm equally convinced that if he had it to do over again he'd make the same decision. With Rivera unavailable and having already decided Valverde would pitch the 9th wouldn't Girardi want a Rivera-clone to come in and help preserve the lead? Here's a simple comparison (per 162) illustrating my point.

Year	ERA	SV	IP	ERA+	WHIP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	SO/9	SO/BB
Soria	2.13	37	74	208	0.994	6.4	0.7	2.5	10.2	4.02
Rivera	2.22	39	80	205	1.001	6.9	0.5	2.1	8.3	3.97

Now tell me what manager in his right mind wouldn't want a guy with Rivera-like numbers to pitch in a game with playoff implications? And wouldn't it have made more sense to hold Hughes back for a possible 2 or 3 inning stint? Grrrr!!!! Well done Joe, well done.

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With the second half set to begin tomorrow Kansas City finds themselves 10 games under .500, as pennant races heat up they are once again on the outside looking in. At least internally I hope Moore has acknowledged this fact and lets the remainder of the year play out with 2011 in mind. And yes that means promoting AND playing Gordon and Ka'aihue (a horse I've surely beaten to death by now). I'd also like to see Aviles claim the shortstop job, I mean they have to know what they have in Betancourt by now so I think they should play Getz everyday so they'll know if he's a viable second base option for next season. 

Here's the lineup I'd prefer to see the rest of the year:

LF - DDJ
SS - Aviles
RF - Gordon
1B - Butler
DH - Ka'aihue
3B - Callaspo
CF - Maier
2B - Getz
C - less Kendall/more Pena

Of course this would require trading Podsednik and Guillen and possibly releasing Betancourt and Ankiel, so that probably makes my lineup somewhat unrealistic. Of course any trade could potentially bring back a MLB ready talent thus altering the roster. If Dayton Moore really does have 2011's best interest in mind then things should start get interesting any day now.