2000: David Wells, Carlos Delgado: Blue Jay All-Star Moments!

Number 3 on our countdown is the 2000 All-Star game in Turner Field in Atlanta.

We had a pretty good team in 2000, we finished 83-79, in 3rd place, 4.5 games back of the Yankees. We had 3 players named to the 2000 All-Star team: David Wells, Carlos Delgado and Tony Batista. 

David Wells: David was back with the Blue Jays after having come up to the majors with the Jays and playing his first 6 seasons with the team. The Jays had traded Roger Clemens to the Yankees for Wells, Homer Bush and Graeme Lloyd before the 1999 season. At the break Wells was 15-2 (!) with a 3.44 ERA in 19 starts. His second half didn't go quite as well, he finished 20-8, 4.11 in 35 starts. In 229.2 innings he had 166 strikeouts and just 31 walks. It was Well's 3rd and last All-Star game. He came in 3rd in Cy Young voting. In those two year with the Jays, he went 37-18.

Wells was named the starting pitcher for the AL and pitched the first 2 scoreless innings. In the first inning, he got Barry Larkin to pop out, gave up a single to Chipper Jones, got Vlad Guerrero to line out and struck out Sammy Sosa. In the second he got Jeff Kent to ground out, Andres Galarraga lined out to left, Jim Edmonds singled and then David struck out Jason Kendall to end the inning. 

Carlos Delgado: In 2000 Carlos was having his usual great season.  At the break he was hitting .363/.476/.709 with 28 home runs and 80 RBI. He played every game that season, finishing .344/.470/.664 with 41 home runs, 137 RBI and 123 walks. He finished 4 in MVP voting and won the Silver Slugger award. It was his first of two All-Star games. 

Carlos came into the game in the bottom of the 4th, taking over for starter Jason Giambi. He hit a 1 out double in the 6th but was stranded at second. In the bottom of the 7th he was replaced at first by Fred McGriff.

Tony Batista: The owner of the most peculiar batting stance that I think I have ever seen Tony was having a good first half of the 2000 season. At the break he was hitting .289/.328/.571 with 24 home runs and 72 RBI. He slowed in the second half, hitting .263/.307/.519 with 51  41 homers and 114 RBI. Pretty decent, even if he didn't get on base all that well. 2000 was the first of 2 All-Star games for Batista. 

Batista pinch hit for Troy Glaus in the top of the 9th and struck out swinging against Bob Wickman. He stayed in the game at 3rd base and played the rest of the game. 

The AL won the game 6-3, Derek Jeter was the MVP.