OF Reynolds chosen as reserve, joins Frazier at All-Star Game

Adam Frazier has a travel partner.

And the Pirates, incredibly, will have two representatives at the MLB All-Star Game next week after Bryan Reynolds was selected Sunday.

It’s the first All-Star appearance for both. Frazier will be the National League’s starter at second base, while Reynolds was picked as a reserve. The game is July 13 at Coors Field in Denver.

“I hoped it would happen,” Reynolds said. “One of my goals this year, so it’s really exciting.”

Fans voted in eight starters for the National League last week, which led to Fraz i e r w i n n i n g o u t o v e r

47% of the vote to become the Pirates’ first all-star starter at second base since Bill Mazeroski in 1967.

This will mark the second consecutive All-Star Game where the Pirates will have two representatives. There was no game last year, but Josh Bell and Felipe Vazquez went in 2019.

The last time the Pirates had two position players go to the All-Star Game was 2014, when Andrew McCutchen was voted in as a starter and Josh Harrison was selected as a reserve, which is done by a combination of player balloting and the commissioner’s office.

Sunday was the day to fill out the remaining spots on both rosters, including 24 for the National League. Half of those spots went to pitchers, while Reynolds was part of the other 12.

As he should have been, too.

Reynolds’ entered Sunday’s game ranked third among NL leaders in onbase percentage, fifth in batting average (.310), seventh in slugging percentage (.540) and tied for sixth in extra-base hits (36).

Nobody on the Pirates has more than Reynolds’ 15 home runs, while his .948 OPS as an outfielder ranked fourth in the NL, trailing only Jesse Winker (.989) and Nick Castellanos (.982) of the Reds and Ronald Acuna Jr. (.978) of the Braves.

All three of those guys were voted in as starters.

“It’s cool,” Reynolds said. “I didn’t need any type of validation to know the type of player that I can be, but obviously it’s a great honor and I’m ecstatic to be able to go.”

Reynolds has been riding high after a tremendous June, when he ranked first in batting (.376), fifth in RBIs (22) and third in OPS (1.087) among NL hitters.

Furthermore, he was hitting .360 over his past 27 games entering Sunday’s contest and has hit .370 this season with runners in scoring position, the second-best mark among NL hitters.

Those numbers are a big reason Reynolds has been able to produce the fourthhighest Wins Above Replacement (WAR) this season, per FanGraphs, at 3.2, trailing only Acuna Jr. (3.7) and Castellanos (3.5) among NL outfielders.

Although he has grown tired of talking about last year, this season has been one heck of a bounce-back for Reynolds, who hit just .189 and had a .632 OPS with seven homers and 19 RBIs over 55 games in pandemic-shortened 2020.

It was a far cry from what Reynolds did during his breakout 2019, when he slashed .314/.377/.503 in 134 games, with 37 doubles, 16 homers and 68 RBIs, finishing fourth in the NL Rookie of the Year balloting.

“I didn’t hang my hat on last year,” Reynolds said. “I’ve said that plenty of times up to this point, so yeah it’s good to play the way that I know I can.”

Although it would be tough to argue that the Pirates should have had three representatives, Reynolds’ selection means that Richard Rodriguez did not make it despite a solid first half.

Rodriguez was 3-1 with a 2.59 ERA and 10 saves in 30 appearances totaling 31⅓ innings entering Sunday’s game. The right- hander has struck out 27 and walked just three, although he has been scored upon five times in his past 11 outings (8 earned runs, 11⅓ innings).

Reynolds’ selection should mean a couple different things when it comes to the bigger picture, too. It’s something that will undoubtedly help him while starting the arbitration process as a Super 2 player this offseason.

It also has helped the Pirates continue to build toward the future, as Reynolds has shown that he’s more of what we saw in 2019 and not what he was in the pandemic- shortened season.

Whether that’s enough to consider Reynolds a “franchise cornerstone” still must be sorted out, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said.

“I’ve never really thought about any single player as that label: franchise cornerstone,” Cherington said, speaking Sunday on 93.7 FM for his weekly radio show. “We just need lots of good players to win, and that’s what our focus is on.”

Now, Frazier and Reynolds are set to spend the all-star break in Denver.

“I’m excited,” Reynolds said. “[Frazier] is one of my good buddies on the team, so it’s going to be fun to experience that with him.”