Bond, Edlefsen will represent Giants in PCL All-Star Game tonight
Wait a minute. You mean Eugenio Velez didn’t get elected? Huh, go figure.
The 2010 Pacific Coast League AAA All-Star game will be held tonight and two Fresno Grizzlies will be in uniform at Coca Cola Park in Allenstown, PA as the PCL All-Stars take on the International League All-Stars at 7:05 p.m.
Brock Bond and Steve Edlefsen will represent the Giants.
Bond, 24, is batting .300 (82-for-273) with 17 doubles, 44 runs scored and 28 RBI through his first 76 games with the Grizzlies this season. Bond (pictured, above) has also walked 47 times and owns a .413 on-base percentage, good for third and fifth in the league, respectively. He is coming off a 2009 season in which he was named to both the mid-season and postseason All-Star teams in the Eastern League, where he won the batting title and led the league in on-base percentage. A 24th round selection from the University of Missouri in the 2007 First-Year Player Draft, Bond has never batted below .315 in a professional season.
Edlefsen, 25, leads Grizzlies relievers with his five wins and 1.61 ERA (8 ER/44.2 IP). The sinkerballer is holding opponents to a .222 batting average, notching an eye-popping 3.50/1 ground-out-to-air-out ratio. A 16th round selection by the Giants in 2007 out of the University of Nebraska, Edlefsen sports a 23-7 career record to go along with 15 saves.
Former Giants pitcher Pat Misch is on the IL squad.
While it doesn’t really surprise me that Velez isn’t going, I am surprised that John Bowker didn’t get the call. Last year’s PCL Player-of-the-Year is batting .305 with 9 HR and 25 RBI in 131 at bats for Fresno. He was recently named PCL Player-of-the-Week, too, after batting .360 (9-for-25) with three walks, three doubles, four home runs, seven runs scored and eight RBI over a seven-game span June 14-20.
Regardless, the game will feature some of the best future stars in baseball. Guys like Chase Utley, Derek Jeter, Mike Lowell, Justin Morneau, Alfonso Soriano, Jim Thome, Chipper Jones and Kenny Lofton have all played in this contest before hitting the Bigs.
The game will be broadcast on the MLB Network.
ROSTER: Pacific Coast League All-Stars [pdf] >>
ROSTER: International League All-Stars [pdf] >>
