Andy Pages made it to the second phase of All-Star voting, but Ronald Acuña Jr., Pete Crow-Armstrong, and Kyle Tucker eventually edged out Pages and fellow Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández by the time the dust settled. It was disappointing, but there was still a chance for the players and/or Commissioner's Office to grant a reserve spot to either of them.
However, when ESPN unveiled starters and reserves on Sunday afternoon, Pages' name wasn't called. Instead, Corbin Carroll, Kyle Stowers, Fernando Tatis Jr., and James Wood will be the National League's backup outfielders in Atlanta next week.
Stowers and Wood made some sense. The Marlins needed MLB to throw them a bone and have someone represent them, and Stowers has had an admirable season. Wood, who's batting .288 with a .940 OPS, will be starring in the Home Run Derby and was likely the starting lineup's biggest omission. Even Carroll, who spent a short stint on the IL but is still slugging .556 and could be on his way to a 30/30 season, made sense.
But Tatis? Over Pages? Dodgers fans were quick to make their displeasure known, as Pages is hitting better by almost every metric.
Dodgers fans raging over Andy Pages being snubbed out of an All-Star appearance in favor of Fernando Tatis Jr.
Pages' strides this season have been an unexpected but entirely welcome development for the Dodgers. If this had been his rookie season, he'd be threatening the league's top tier in RoY voting. Every facet of Pages' game has improved this season; though still not much of a baserunner, he's already turning into an elite bat and defensive center fielder, despite some foibles at the beginning of the season.
Maybe MLB got sick of hearing opposing fans cry about Dodgers bias — and the Dodgers already had three starters in Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Will Smith — so they threw the Padres a bone, too.
We'll allow that Tatis is having a nice season and is clearly the Padres' most valuable position player by a wide margin, but Pages leads Tatis by almost 20 RBI, as well as lapping him in homers, batting average, slugging, and OPS.
It doesn't help that Tatis is one of Dodgers' fans most hated players, but it's pretty clear that Pages not only has the advantage over him, but arguably over Stowers and Carroll as well.
