The Cincinnati Reds lefty earns his first All-Star bid!
There are 91 pitchers across Major League Baseball that have thrown at least 80 innings so far in the 2025 season.
Andrew Abbott is one of them, and there are only three pitchers in that group who own a better ERA, to date, than his 2.15 – American League All-Star Hunter Brown of the Astros (1.82), National League All-Star Paul Skenes of the Pirates (1.94), and American League All-Star Tarik Skubal of the Tigers (2.02).
Abbott, the former 2nd round draftee of the Cincinnati Reds, has enjoyed a breakout campaign for the Redlegs so far this season, but he was a notable snub when rosters were initially announced for the Summer Classic over the weekend. The baseball gods, though, made amends on Tuesday afternoon, when Abbott was added to the NL’s squad as a replacement for Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic relayed the news via Bluesky.
Reds announce LHP Andrew Abbott will replace Dodgers RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the NL All-Star team.
— C Trent Rosecrans (@ctrent.bsky.social) 2025-07-09T00:00:55.850Z
It remains to be seen as to why Yamamoto, who has mostly excelled for the Los Angeles Dodgers so far in 2025, has dropped off the roster. He was hit hard against the Milwaukee Brewers just yesterday and exited in his first inning of work after allowing 5 ER on 41 pitches, however, and the hope here is that he’s merely being targeted for an extended bit of rest.
As for Abbott, it’s a great opportunity, one that he’ll surely cherish whether he ends up getting into the game, or not. That said, Charlie Goldsmith noted on his Substack column earlier this evening how pitching guru Derek Johnson ideally wished to line-up his left-handed starters to open the season’s second half since the New York Mets – who the Reds will face first – are heavy on left-handed hitters, and any appearance by Abbott in the game may well tweak that plan a little bit.
That will have a lot to do with how well Hunter Greene’s recovery from his seemingly never-ending groin problems go, too.
Congrats to Andrew on what will hopefully be the first of very, very many All-Star Games going forward.