GameThread: 2009 MLB All-Star Game...Featuring: Washington Nationals' Third Baseman, Ryan Zimmerman.

Washington Nationals - All-Star History...

(continued from 7/7/08 All-Star Post)...

In 2005, for Detroit's All-Star Game, there were two Nationals selected as reserves, with DC's Flat-Brimmed Closer Chad Cordero, who entered the Break in '05 with a (2-1) record, 31 saves in 46 games, and 47.2 innings pitched over which he'd allowed just 37 hits, 6 ER, 4 HR's and 12 walks with 42 K's and a 1.13 ERA, and Livan Hernandez, the former Mr. National Himself, who was, at the time of his selection, (12-3) in 19 starts, with a 3.48 ERA and 78 K's in 134.1 innings on the mound for the relocated franchise. 

In '06, Washington, (and baseball fans everywhere, who voted him a starter), sent reluctant DC outfielder Alfonso Soriano to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's PNC Park as the Nationals' (thus far) lone "elected" All-Star representative. After 81 games that season, Soriano had collected 93 hits in 338 at bats, for a .275 AVG, with 24 doubles, 21 HR's, 56 RBI's, 10 stolen bases, and (in one of the rare instances where the term "irony" could, possibly, be correctly applied), a League-leading 12 outfield assists, though most of those were because opposing coaches continued to test his arm throughout his first season in the outfield.

Last season, Washington first baseman Dmitri Young was a surprising selection when he was added as a reserve for San Francisco's turn as the ASG host city in July of 2007. DY had been written off by many after he'd flamed out in Detroit and actually been released by the Tigers a year earlier, but then Da Meat Hook hooked up with Washington and set about rejuvenating his Major League career. At the time of his selection, DY was hitting .339, with 96 hits in 283 at bats over 81 games, in which he'd collected 23 doubles, 1 triple, 8 HR's and 43 RBI's. 

Chad Cordero struck out the only batter he faced in the '05 ASG. Earlier in that game, Livan Hernandez, (who had been selected in '04 as an Expo, but did not pitch), gave up 2 runs on 2 hits and a walk in 1.0 inning of work for the NL squad. Alfonso Soriano was 1 for 2 with a single in the '06 All-Star game, and DY was 1 for 1 in his only at bat in '07. In 2008, Cristian Guzman, representing Washington in NY, was called upon to pinch run in the ninth, much to the delight of the DC Faithful, and then to our horror he was caught stealing on a strike'em out, throw'em out, but he stayed in the game, (for six innings), playing third (by neccessity, for the first time in his career) and going 0 for 3...