Carlsbad’s Rogers named to NL All-Star team
Trevor Rogers was summoned to manager Don Mattingly’s office on Sunday morning, not long before their Miami Marlins were to play the Braves in Atlanta.
There, Rogers was told he was a Major League All-Star.
“Just in complete shock, really, this being my first (full) season,” Rogers told the Journal by phone after he had returned to Miami late Sunday night. “It’s something you dream of, but you don’t really think about until it gets here.”
The Marlins rookie left-handed starter, who has been outstanding in this, his first full season, is headed to Colorado for the July 13 Major League All-Star Game at Coors Field in Denver. He was named one of the National League pitchers on Sunday.
Even at 11 p.m. Sunday in Florida, about 12 hours after he learned the news, Rogers was still digesting it all. “Utter shock,” he said. “You know,” he added, “it’s something I didn’t think about. I knew I was pitching well. I knew if I kept doing my job, that would take care of itself.”
Rogers (7-5, 2.14 ERA) is scheduled to start against the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night in south Florida. It is possible, even likely, that he’ll get an additional start on Saturday or next Sunday, when it’s his turn in the rotation.
Reaching the All-Star Game, Rogers said, fulfilled a plan.
“I wrote down a list of goals for the year,” he said, “and one of them was making the All-Star team. … My goal is to be the best pitcher in baseball, and I’m continuing to work on that.”
Rogers has been one of baseball’s pleasant surprise stories in 2021. He has struck out 110 batter in 92⅓ innings, and he’s gone head-to-head, and beaten, two of the NL’s best — fellow All-Stars Corbin Burnes of Milwaukee and Jacob deGrom of New York. Rogers had held opponents to three runs or fewer in each of his 16 starts. He was named the NL Rookie of the Month in both April and May.
He said he was already looking forward to getting to Denver, where a good number of family and friends from Carlsbad, his hometown, are sure to be celebrating with him.
“Just the overall experience,” he said. “I’ve watched the Home Run Derby for years, now I get to watch it live. I’m really excited for that, especially in Denver where the ball flies.”
Rogers was asked if he envisioned making this kind of leap forward
between 2020’s abbreviated season and this season.
“That’s a good question. I always think success; that’s just the way I’m wired. I want to win,” he said. But, he added in a moment of candor, to have expected this signficant of a leap?
“I’d laugh in your face a little bit,” he said.
In addition to Rogers, Burnes and deGrom, other starting pitchers from the National League who were chosen on Sunday were Yu Darvish of San Diego, Kevins Gausman of San Francisco, German Marquez of the hometown Colorado Rockies, Zack Wheeler of Philadelphia and Brandon Woodruff from Milwaukee.