The Major League Baseball All-Star week is here. It’s widely recognized as the midway point in the season, even though technically it’s not.
Alas, it’s crazy to think the baseball season is more than halfway done.
This year, the All-Star game is taking place in Philadelphia. It will be the first time the event has been held at Citizens Bank Park. Philadelphia most recently hosted the All-Star game in 1996 at Veterans Stadium.
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Photo by Duane Burleson/Getty ImagesPhoto by Duane Burleson/Getty Images
To top it all off, the starting pitcher for the National League will be Cristopher Sanchez, the Phillies ace starting pitcher,
It’s Sanchez’s second All-Star appearance (2024, 2026) and the first time that he will be the starting pitcher in the game.
He joins Robin Roberts (1950, 1951, 1953, 1954, 1955), Curt Simmons (1952, 1957), Steve Carlton (1969, 1979), Terry Mullholland (1993), Curt Shilling (1999), and Roy Halladay (2011), as the only pitcher’s to start an All-Star game for the Phillies.
Sanchez has been one of the game’s biggest surprises over the last five years. He went from a minor league pitcher who had no control of his pitches, to a perennial Cy Young candidate and now the starting pitcher of the Midsummer Classic.
And if the list of pitchers above is any indication of where Sanchez’s career will ultimately head, it’s signaling a great career.
Earlier this season, Sanchez set a franchise record tossing 50 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings. He’s parlayed that into a dominant season that sees him do something a Phillies pitcher hasn’t done in 15 years.
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The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5’s Kyle Clark. Any opinions expressed are his own.
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