The American League named 8 starting pitchers to the All-Star game today. Going into today's play, Jered Weaver ranked 7th in the league in ERA, 7th in Adjusted ERA+ (which adjusts for your home park), 3rd in wins, 2nd in complete games, 4th in quality starts, 5th in WHIP, 11th in strikeouts, and 12th in innings pitched. As you all know, he didn't make the team. Here's a list of the top 17 starting pitchers in the league, ranked by ERA+, who have thrown at least 100 innings this year. The All-Stars are in bold.

NM IP   W L ERA  ERA+ QS Last name
ZG 121 10 4 2.00 214  14 Greinke
EJ 115  6 4 2.59 172  13 Jackson
FH 117  8 3 2.72 162  13 Hernandez
KM 119  8 5 2.80 158  12 Millwood
RH 116 10 2 2.79 154  11 Halladay
MB 108  8 2 3.09 149  10 Buehrle 
JW 107  8 3 3.10 144  11 Weaver
NB 107  6 4 3.10 131  11 Blackburn
CL 120  4 8 3.45 131  13 Lee
DB 106  6 7 3.13 130  13 Braden
MG 104  6 5 3.45 129  10 Garza
JS 116  6 6 3.50 127  10 Shields
JV 109  8 4 3.54 126  10 Verlander
JB 105  9 3 3.67 126  11 Beckett
AB 101  7 4 3.83 114  10 Burnett
CS 115  7 5 3.85 114   8 Sabathia
TW 103 10 3 4.30 108  10 Wakefield

What jumps out here, aside from the highway robbery on poor Kevin Millwood, is that it's not as if Joe Maddon had to pick Justin Verlander, Josh Beckett and Tim Wakefield to fill quotas from crappy teams. Edwin Jackson and Curtis Granderson were already representing the Tigers, and Lord knows there's never any shortage of Red Sox.

I actually don't mind the Wakefield pick, since he's a good old guy making the team for the first time at age 42, has probably deserved it before, and is certainly the winningest non-All Star active, if not of all time. Plus, he can throw 10 extra innings if need be. But did Beckett and Verlander really deserve it more than Jered Weaver? Oh hell no they didn't.

The silver lining, obviously, is that Jered will have extra rest over the break, and hopefully be kicked up the rotation in front of Joe Saunders, who looks like he needs a nap.