Jason Bay and Freddy Sanchez will represent the Pirates at the All-Star Game. Not that it matters, but I'm glad Sanchez made the team, after being unjustly denied a starting job at the start of the year.
Kudos to Jim Tracy, also, for admitting the Pirates screwed this up:
The really amusing thing about this is that Tracy has refused to take the blame for a number of things this year that legitimately were his fault, like allowing an injured Ryan Doumit to make a crucial error at first base, a position he didn't even play. But in this case, Tracy was willing to take the blame - and this wasn't even really his fault! It's Dave Littlefield's, for overpaying for Joe Randa, which forced Tracy to keep Sanchez on the bench for a while. It may be true that's what Tracy wanted to do anyway, but Littlefield is the real culprit here. Perhaps Tracy has been reading the Post-Gazette, which was critical of him this week for not taking blame for any of the Pirates' shortcomings.
Still, it seems like a bad omen that Sanchez is now in with Tracy. I feel like I expect Sanchez to go on a 1-for-100 slump or something.