Halladay to Start All-Star Game

In a not-at-all-shocking turn of events, Roy Halladay got the nod as the starting pitcher for the National League in Tuesday's All-Star Game, according to the very loquacious Matt Gelb of The Inquirer.

This marks the second time in Doc's career that he has been tabbed as the starting pitcher in the Midsummer Classic, the last time was in 2009, when he took the mound for the A.L. All-Stars as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays.

National League manager Bruce Bochy had a bunch of really good options to choose from -- Cliff Lee, Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum (and none of those would have been a bad choice) -- but it’s a really cool thing to get to see a Phillie get the nod as the starter in the All-Star Game. Even though it doesn’t really mean anything.*

*Home field advantage can take a hike for all I care. Especially this season, when cast-offs from all over the place are getting the “honor” of being selected as an All-Star, simply because every other player has had to skip it, due to injury or other reasons.

Predictably, Halladay is leading, or near the top of the leader boards in just about every statistical category of significance in the National League, so there is a ton of empirical data to back up all that anecdotal “Halladay is the best in the game” chatter. Not that we needed any convincing.

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The right-hander figures to get a couple innings of work in, which will be quite the change of pace for him, but it wouldn’t be at all surprising if he throws a complete game shutout. You know, just because he can.