All-Star snubs highlight Phils’ team-wide achievements

NEW YORK » The 2017 Phillies were 2357 when Joe Maddon was made to pretend otherwise. So charged with filling an All-Star roster including at least one player from every team, the National League manager ruffled through his stat sheets and his senses and decided Pat Neshek was as good a compromise as any to meet his requirement and represent Philadelphia.

Rules are rules. So to the losers would go but the minimum of the spoils.

The Phillies were not 34 games to the bad this season when the All-Star rosters were formed. They were 11 to the good, in first place in their division, among the hottest teams in the game. And they had candidates, plural, to represent the National League next Tuesday in Washington. Yet, when the returns came in, there it was again: One, just one, Phillie would be selected for the game. That would be Aaron Nola, who improved to 12-2 Monday when he pitched the Phillies to a 3-1 victory in Game 2 of a doubleheader with the Mets, allowing one hit and striking out 10 in seven innings. Nor were any Phillies among the five deemed worthy for the “final ballot,” the afterhours fan vote to add one more player to each team.

So what happened, anyway, to that loose agreement that it was the losers who were supposed to receive only a courtesy invite? And shouldn’t Gabe Kapler have been found growling Monday, when he and his one-All-Star roster arrived in Citi Field as one of three first-place teams in their league? And shouldn’t some Phillies have been double-tapping their smart phones, convinced that they must have missed that important call?

“I think first, everybody is extremely happy for Nola,” Kapler said. “It’s true, right? It’s not like, ‘Oooh, I wish I was the guy.’ It’s more like, ‘This guy sets an incredible example, he’s incredibly creative on the mind, his body of work this season is top-five in all of baseball.’ He was a nodoubter. So, the focus of the clubhouse was to congratulate him.’”

Nola won the All-Star spot because his .846 winning percentage was tied with Jon Lester’s as the National League’s best. He was not a sympathy pick selected to fill the every-team-must-be-represented loophole. He deserves to start the game, not just stand there like an intruder and model a red, pinstriped uniform in the team photo. So it wasn’t as if teammates were likely to stare at him sideways or be miserable that he was cashing the kind of All-Star bonus check they might have deserved, too.

“The focus of the clubhouse was to lift him up and support him and surround him with congratulations,” Kapler said. “We know that there are a lot of players around baseball who don’t make the AllStar team even with really good first halves of the season. I can step back and objectively point out several players that I think are AllStars. I don’t think it’s necessary to go through them by name, but I believe that we have three guys or so that I could make a very strong argument in a debate setting that should be All-Stars.”

Those names that the manager would not share: Carlos Santana, Odubel Herrera and Zach Eflin. Or did he mean Cesar Hernandez, Rhys Hoskins and Seranthony Dominguez? None would have been out of place next week in D.C. Santana was one of three players in the majors with at least 50 RBIs and 65 walks. Herrera was the first Phillies center fielder since Willie Montanez to have 15 home runs and 50 RBIs by the break. Eflin is 7-2 with a 3.15 ERA and was one breakthrough hit away in a 4-3, 10-inning, Game 1 loss Monday from winning his eighth consecutive start.

Hernandez? He was on base 144 times, most among National League second basemen. Hoskins had 14 home runs and is one of the league’s more intriguing, young showpieces. Dominguez has struck out 41 and walked one (1), and has a 1.71 ERA.

So any could have been an All-Star. Then again, none was dominating enough to have won no-doubt-about-it status or to expect the fans to circle stadiums brandishing buring All-Star rosters. Santana was hitting .217 Monday, Hoskins .255, Hernandez .269. And Herrera’s dramatic offensive inconsistency comes with a fee. Yet the depth of Phillies’ production and that lack of All-Star recognition are connected. The Phillies are better this season not because they have built a Golden State Warriorslevel collection of superstars. They are better because, at any moment, almost any one of them can command the stage. Throw Maikel Franco, who homered in Game 1 Monday, in that category. Nick Pivetta. Jorge Alfaro, for his arm alone.

“It’s not my job,” said Kapler, who one day may have the chore of All-Star selection. “But they’re still having great seasons. The fact that they’re not on the AllStar team does not negate the work that they’ve done.”

It does not accurately reflect it, either.

Contact Jack McCaffery @jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery