MLB

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't watched John Lannan's starts very closely recently. Tonight, I'm going to try to watch some of the starts that I only heard on "Charlie and Dave," and afterwards, I'll share more thoughts.

But my first gut reaction to like Mike Rizzo's decision to demote Lannan to AA was not good. The first person I thought of was Steven Shell. ("I didn't like his whole aura on the mound.") Then I thought of Daniel Cabrera. ("I was tired of watching him.") And then I thought of Elijah Dukes and Lastings Milledge.

It is always fun to speculate who will make the once-again expanded All-Star Game roster. Since each team has to have at least one All-Star, here are the 30 who are deserving.

This list includes many young stars of the game who should be showcased to the whole nation, as well as some veterans that you might not expect to see at an All-Star Game.

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It's the start of the summer solstice, so it's getting hot. OK...not that kind of "hot", but...well, I admit it — the pic is just a gratuitous photo to get your attention.

But it is June 21, and the Chicago Cubs sit seven games behind the division leading Cardinals, in third place at 31-38. It's no longer early, and it's no longer too soon to panic.

Now before we get caught up in unrealistic proposals here, let me start by saying that Alfonso Soriano is going nowhere.

Despite losing their last two consecutive games against the New York Yankees, the New York Mets have showed improvement.

Going 8-2 in the last 10 games they’ve played, the Mets are currently 39-30 and second in the NL East, trailing the Atlanta Braves by 2.5 games.

Since calling R.A. Dickey and Hisanori Takahashi from the minor leagues, the Mets have found success. Dickey is 5-0 on the season with a 2.82 ERA and Takahashi is 6-2 with a 3.13 ERA on the season.

The Yankees have announced that they have called minor league outfielder Colin Curtis up from Triple-A Scranton. 

Curtis, 25, has played 35 games at the Triple-A level this season. In those games, he has 125 at-bats, a .280 average, .357 OBP, .368 SLG, and a .725 OPS. He split 2009 between Double-A and Triple-A. In 132 games last season, he had a combined .250 average, .321 OBP, and a .686 OPS.

In the world of sports, there are no absolutes. Especially in baseball, absolutes simply don't exist.

Home runs are ruled as ground rule doubles, perfect games are ruined by wrong calls, and strikes are called balls.

Leave the absolutes to the sciences (and vodka, I guess?).

But with baseball? Everything is open for evaluation and change.

Unfortunately, the San Francisco Giants have a personnel team that believes in absolute untouchables.

Or at least they will tell you that is what they believe in.

The list of struggling Orioles in 2010 is nearly as lengthy as their 25-man roster, but few are more noticeable than Adam Jones, the club’s starting center fielder and one of the faces of the franchise.

Jones is a key cog in the Oriole’s rebuilding process and after winning his first Gold Glove and appearing in his first All-Star game in 2009, he appeared to be on the path to stardom.

However, prior to the month of June, Jones has struggled to recapture the success of last season.

The 2010 Cubs are a team I think of as being full of geezers, with Marlon Byrd, Mike Fontinot, Ryan Theriot, Kosuke Fukodome, Xavier Nady, Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee, Ted Lilly, Ryan Dempster and Carlos Silva all over 30.  However, the Cubs have been quietly slipping a number of promising rookies into the mix this year.

Balloting for the American League All-Star team is not over, not until July 1, and the Yankees currently have two players with the most amount of votes for their positions, SS Derek Jeter and 2B Robinson Cano.

After taking a look at the American League All-Stars for this year's game, I will now take the time to discuss who should be suiting up for the National League.

Once again, a few of the current voting leaders do not deserve to be in the starting lineup. Here is who should be taking the field first:

Catcher: Miguel Olivo

The Rockies catcher is off to a great start. He is hitting about .300 and has some nice power every time he steps to the plate.