MLB Team Gives All-Star Game Bonus To Snubbed Pitcher
The best players in Major League Baseball gathered in Atlanta this week for the annual All-Star Game. The National League took home the win after the first-ever home run swing-off in All-Star Game history, but a player who didn't see the field in Atlanta is also walking away as a big winner this week.
Texas Rangers pitcher Nathan Eovaldi was one of the best players in the American League over the first half of the season, but he wasn't selected to the All-Star Game. Despite the snub, the Rangers honored Eovaldi's season with a special gift to the veteran pitcher.
The team gave Eovaldi the $100,000 contract bonus he would have received if he was voted into or selected for the game.
The 15-year veteran would be the league leader in ERA with an incredible 1.58 this season, but he doesn't qualify after only pitching 91 of the required 97 innings. Eovaldi missed a month's worth of starts after a triceps injury, and would have easily eclipsed the threshold for league leader recognition if healthy.
Eovaldi is a two-time All-Star from his time with the Boston Red Sox. He also won a World Series with Boston in 2018 and one with the Rangers in 2023.
The Rangers find themselves on the outside looking into the American League playoffs at this point in the season, but it's no fault of Eovaldi and the pitching staff, who have produced the best ERA in baseball this year.
Next year's MLB All-Star Game will be played in a National League East division park for the second straight year, as the game will move up the east coast to Philadelphia and Citizens Bank Park.
It'll be the fifth time Philadelphia has hosted the event, and the first time since 1996. That year, Pennsylvania native Mike Piazza homered and took home MVP honors in a 6-0 shutout win for the National League.
Atlanta Braves legend John Smoltz took the mound for the NL as starter and put in two scoreless innings, and the National League won what would be Ozzie Smith's final All-Star Game.
We'll see what Eovaldi can do in the second half of the season, especially now that he's $100,000 richer.