FanHouse

It's one thing to see a player voted in by the fans struggle. That's an issue of uniformed fans voting based on popularity more than anything else. But it's a complete other thing to see a manager select a player who has struggled recently. Tony LaRussa named Brian Fuentes to the NL All-Star team, Fuentes' third career selection, even though Fuentes has blown his past four saves. Maybe Tony read my recent breakdown and agrees that a lot of the blown saves were the defense's fault. Whatever the case, LaRussa sure didn't speak to Clint Hurdle first, considering Hurdle has temporarily lost faith in his closer.

"We are going to keep him in the bullpen, but take him out of the role of closing," Hurdle said. "We just want to try and get him out of the spotlight a little bit and off the burner. We want him to reacquire his weapons and then get him back involved."

My guess is the demotion won't last long. There's a reason Fuentes has been an All-Star for now the third season -- he's good. He really got the raw end of the deal in that four-game stretch of blown saves. But if this doesn't stand out as a poor selection by LaRussa, then I don't know what does. If you want to list All-Star snubs, here's one of the first guys who should have been replaced.

Previously at FanHouse:
Brian Fuentes Lives in Blown Save Infamy