Jesús Luzardo was added to the National League All-Star roster on Tuesday, giving the Phillies six representatives for the 96th Midsummer Classic and giving Luzardo the first All-Star selection of his career. He joins Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Brandon Marsh, Cristopher Sánchez and Jhoan Duran as part of a Phillies contingent that will turn the July 14 showcase into something close to a home-club showcase.
That matters, because this All-Star Game was always going to be about more than the lineups. It is in Philadelphia. It is at Citizens Bank Park. It is wrapped around the city’s baseball identity, its history, its current window of contention, and its belief that this roster should be measured against October expectations, not July applause.
Luzardo’s addition fits that larger story.
He did not make the initial roster. That was understandable if the selection process leaned heavily on ERA. Luzardo’s 3.75 mark does not jump off the page the way Sánchez’s did before Monday’s blowup in Kansas City. But the rest of the profile tells a fuller story. Luzardo is 7-4 through 18 starts, has worked 103 1/3 innings, and has struck out 125 hitters, a total that ranked fifth in the majors entering Tuesday. He also owns a 2.96 FIP, evidence that the underlying performance has often been better than the surface number.
This is where the All-Star case becomes less about a shiny ERA and more about the way Luzardo has helped stabilize a Phillies rotation that needed every bit of depth it could find.
His season did not start cleanly. There were early blowups, long innings and enough hard contact to make his first month feel uneasy. But over time, Luzardo has looked more like the pitcher the Phillies believed they were getting: a left-hander with real strikeout weapons, a fastball that plays, and a sweeper that can make at-bats look uncomfortable when he commands it.
His most recent reminder came Saturday in Kansas City, when he struck out nine over six innings in a 6-1 win over the Royals. It was the kind of start that looked like a public audition for exactly what came three days later.
The latest roster shuffle also touched both leagues. In the American League, Willson Contreras was added after Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was ruled out because of back trouble, while Oakland’s Nick Kurtz is set to start at first base in Guerrero’s place. Byron Buxton, originally voted in as a starting outfielder, will also need to be replaced after landing on the injured list. In the National League, Luzardo, Cardinals reliever Riley O’Brien and Pirates right-hander Braxton Ashcraft were added as pitching replacements for Paul Skenes, Jacob Misiorowski and Max Meyer, who are unavailable to pitch.
Still, the Phillies angle comes with a strange leftover question.
Where is Zack Wheeler?
Wheeler entered Tuesday with a 9-1 record, 2.28 ERA, 0.91 WHIP and 98 strikeouts in 87 innings. He missed the initial roster and, even after replacement spots opened, remains outside the group. Availability may explain part of it. All-Star pitching selections are always shaped by rotation schedules, rest rules and whether a pitcher can actually appear in the game. But it remains odd that one of the National League’s best pitchers, in the host city, on one of the league’s most visible teams, has been left out.
Luzardo’s selection is deserved. Wheeler’s omission is still difficult to square.
Loading Phillies schedule...
Loading NL East standings...
