St. Louis Cardinals: Jhonny Peralta the last Cardinal starter

The MLB All-Star starters have been announced and not one St. Louis Cardinals player appears as a starter.

Thanks to Derrick Goold for making me want to vomit, I can share with you that the St. Louis Cardinals have zero- yes zero- starters featured in the MLB All-Star Game in 2018. I don’t blame this on Goold, but my nausea is due to the fact that Goold reminded us all that the last time the Cardinals were represented in the All-Star Game starters was in 2015.

And the name who started representing the St. Louis Cardinals was Jhonny Peralta. Yes, that Peralta. The one-time PED Peralta. The one-time decent hitter for the Cardinals who faded into obscurity. That Jhonny Peralta.

That said, in 2015, Peralta made his third All-Star appearance. He had torn through the first half of the season and entered the All-Star break with a slash line of .301/.356/.476. For comparison sake, Paul DeJong– through the All-Star break in 2017 (not fair to compare this season thanks to the injury shortened time)- was slashing .277/.282/.505.

Peralta’s 2015 season was one of his best but unfortunately baseball is a game of short memories. To me, in particular, I find it hard to even remember Peralta landing on the All-Star team. I simply remember the Peralta who couldn’t muster to hit at all toward the end of his days with the St. Louis Cardinals.

That said, Peralta smashed 17 home runs in 2015 (he smashed even more in 2014 at 21), hit 26 doubles, and recorded 71 RBI. As much as I like DeJong, I would take these numbers back in a heartbeat.

Sadly, though, the Peralta that I know and I’m sure that many St. Louis Cardinals fans know is the 2017 Peralta who gave way to DeJong. The 2017 version played in only 21 games for the St. Louis Cardinals and played his final MLB game on June 6, 2017.

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This 2017 version slashed only .204/.259/.204 and watched himself fade into the history books.

And yet, now a year later, his name reappears as the last bastion of St. Louis Cardinals lore as starters in the MLB All-Star Game. This fact just hurts and I’m ticked off because of it.

While the players themselves are to blame for their performance that should or should not warrant votes, the organization must stand responsible as well. This means that the GM and manager should stand accountable.

They likely won’t however and we fans will be left with Peralta receiving some attention. That said, his 2015 definitely deserves the attention and I’m glad to replace my negative memory of him with this shining season.

Next: All-Star voting sucks!

All of the above aside, I’d prefer for someone else to stand as an All-Star starter to represent the St. Louis Cardinals and bump Peralta’s name off the record books.