When the American League and National League battle it out for homefield advantage in the World Series next week, there will be two Texas Rangers trying to help some other American League team since their team is far out of the running for any kind of postseason success.
Yu Darvish and Adrian Beltre were both selected to the AL all-star team on Sunday and will suit up for the AL in the July 15 game at Minneapolis' Target Field.
In reality, they were the only Rangers worthy of consideration, even though it appeared for a good while Shin-Soo Choo and Alex Rios would be in the conversation. Choo has been ice cold since mid-May, and Rios has cooled considerably in the last month, even though he's still the Rangers' second-best offensive player.
Beltre, on the other hand, has been red-hot basically since coming off the DL in May after a quad injury. He's hitting .333 with a team-high 11 home runs and team-high 46 RBIs despite missing two weeks with the injury. It's his fourth career all-star appearance.
Darvish, last year's AL Cy Young runner-up, has been in a bit of a funk over the last month but he's still one of the league's best starters and one of the few true aces in the game. He's 8-4 with a 2.63 ERA in 16 starts. He has 134 strikeouts in 109 1/3 innings.
