Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) – Former Atlanta Braves pitcher and current baseball analyst John Smoltz believes that New York Mets pitcher Matt Harvey deserves to start for the National League in the upcoming All-Star Game that will be held in front of his home crowd at Citi Field.<\/p>\n
“The Mets are in transition. They’ve had a nice rebound the last month, but he deserves to start the All-Star Game,” said Smoltz during a conference call promoting the upcoming American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament. “The city deserves to see him start the All-Star Game and I guarantee [National League manager] Bruce Bochy isn’t upset with him starting the All-Star Game if he does, because it helps the National League get a leg up.”<\/p>\n
New York manager Terry Collins, who will be on Bochy’s All-Star staff, is doing his part to make sure Harvey gets the nod, skipping the right-hander’s final scheduled start before the break on Saturday against the Pirates.<\/p>\n
“It’s a brilliant move,” said Smoltz of Collins’ decision.<\/p>\n
Harvey is 7-2 with a 2.35 ERA and 0.92 WHIP in 19 starts over the first half of the season. His ERA is fourth-best in the National League and his 147 strikeouts over 130 innings are tops in the Senior Circuit.<\/p>\n
“He’s a cross between Tom Seaver and Roger Clemens,” said Smoltz of Harvey. “He’s got an incredible future.”<\/p>\n
Smoltz hits Edgewood Golf Course in Tahoe, NV from July 19-21 to participate in the American Century Championship. An avid golfer, Smoltz is listed at 5-1 odds to win the tournament, which can be seen on NBC Sports Network Friday, July 19 and on NBC Saturday, July 20 and Sunday, July 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) – Former Atlanta Braves pitcher and current baseball analyst John Smoltz believes that New York Mets pitcher Matt Harvey deserves to start for the National League in the upcoming All-Star Game that will be held in front of his home crowd at Citi Field. “The Mets are in transition. They’ve had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18,17,19,187,59,186],"class_list":["post-2241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-braves","tag-mets","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-mets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}