SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The addition of Milwaukee Brewers rookie phenom pitcher Jacob Misiorowski to the National League All-Star team drew mixed reactions around Major League Baseball.
Some players and fans took to social media to express their frustrations over a player with only five starts in the majors being added to the NL roster instead of other players who have put up as good, if not better, numbers during the first half of the season.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who will lead the NL squad Tuesday in Atlanta, is on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Roberts made it clear that he had no voice in selecting Misiorowski but sees the move as a positive, given the entertainment value of the Midsummer Classic.
“The All-Star Game is about the fans,” Roberts said Saturday. “Yes, this kid hasn’t pitched a whole lot in the big leagues, but I do think it sparks some more excitement, seeing the velocity.”
The 23-year-old Misiorowski, who is 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA, quickly gained attention when he threw a 100.5 mph fastball for his first pitch in the big leagues.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy said he understood the backlash from around the league but sees it as giving fans what they want.
“People want to see Miz pitch,” Murphy said. “He’s the new shiny toy in the league. It’s not deserving, that has nothing to do with it. He’s been given this opportunity. It’s not his fault.
“This wasn’t a fly-by-night decision. This is something they thought through. I think it would be really tough for the kid to say no to that.”
Murphy likened Misiorowski to former Detroit Tigers pitcher Mark “The Bird” Fidrych.
Fidrych was an All-Star his first two seasons in the majors, an unusual player who often would talk to the ball while on the mound.
Fans embraced Fidrych and his eccentricities because he had the stuff on the mound to back it up. He pitched 24 complete games as a rookie in 1976, including back-to-back games when he logged 11 innings each time.
“From what I know of The Bird, it just seems that he was really authentic and really super talented,” Murphy said. “There’s some parallels there for sure.”
Red Sox manager Alex Cora thinks MLB needs to do a better job getting the best players to the All-Star Game. However, he noted that Boston left-hander Garrett Crochet had opted out of pitching in the game even before he threw a complete game shutout Saturday in order to rest his arm.
“I understand, and we’re living through it right with our ace, he went nine (innings) yesterday,” Cora said Sunday before the Red Sox hosted Tampa Bay. "He’s not going to pitch in the All-Star Game. I think we’ve got to do a better job to get the ‘best of the best’ out there. I don’t know if moving it back to Wednesday or making it that whole week event or something? There’s too many All-Stars.”
Rays manager Kevin Cash agreed that the game should be a showcase of the best.
“I know the All-Star Game, you want the players that are deserving to go and representative for their teams to go, and be able to contribute and be able to play," he said Sunday. “The fans want to see that.”
AP freelancers Jim Hoehn in Milwaukee and Ken Powtak in Boston contributed to this report.
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Milwaukee Brewers' Jacob Misiorowski pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Tuesday, July 8, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash)
Milwaukee Brewers' Jacob Misiorowski reacts after striking out Los Angeles Dodgers' Freddie Freeman during the third inning of a baseball game Tuesday, July 8, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An astronaut in need of doctors' care departed the International Space Station with three crewmates on Wednesday in NASA's first medical evacuation.
The four returning astronauts — from the U.S., Russia and Japan — are aiming for an early Thursday morning splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego with SpaceX. The decision cuts short their mission by over a month.
“Our timing of this departure is unexpected,” NASA astronaut Zena Cardman said before the return trip, “but what was not surprising to me was how well this crew came together as a family to help each other and just take care of each other.”
Officials refused to identify the astronaut who needed care last week and would not divulge the health concerns.
The ailing astronaut is “stable, safe and well cared for,” outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke said earlier this week via social media. “This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists."
Launched in August, Cardman, Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov should have remained on the space station until late February. But on Jan. 7, NASA abruptly canceled the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke and later announced the crew’s early return. Officials said the health problem was unrelated to spacewalk preparations or other station operations, but offered no other details, citing medical privacy. They stressed it was not an emergency situation.
NASA said it would stick to the same entry and splashdown procedures at flight’s end, with the usual assortment of medical experts aboard the recovery ship in the Pacific. It was another middle-of-the-night crew return for SpaceX, coming less than 11 hours after undocking from the space station. NASA said it was not yet known how quickly all four would be flown from California to Houston, home to Johnson Space Center and the base for astronauts.
One U.S. and two Russian astronauts remain aboard the orbiting lab, just 1 1/2 months into an eight-month mission that began with a Soyuz rocket liftoff from Kazakhstan. NASA and SpaceX are working to move up the launch of a fresh four-person crew from Florida, currently targeted for mid-February.
Computer modeling predicted a medical evacuation from the space station every three years, but NASA hasn't had one in its 65 years of human spaceflight. The Russians have not been as fortunate. In 1985, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Vasyutin came down with a serious infection or related illness aboard his country’s Salyut 7 space station, prompting an early return. A few other Soviet cosmonauts encountered less serious health issues that shortened their flights.
It was the first spaceflight for Cardman, a 38, biologist and polar explorer who missed out on spacewalking, as well as Platonov, 39, a former fighter pilot with the Russian air force who had to wait a few extra years to get to space because of an undisclosed health issue. Cardman should have launched last year but was bumped to make room on the way down for NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were stuck nearly a year at the space station because of Boeing’s capsule problems.
Fincke, 58, a retired Air Force colonel, and Yui, 55, a retired fighter pilot with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, were repeat space fliers. Finke has spent 1 1/2 years in orbit over four missions and conducted nine spacewalks on previous flights, making him one of NASA’s top performers. Last week, Yui celebrated his 300th day in space over two station stays, sharing stunning views of Earth, including Japan’s Mount Fuji and breathtaking auroras.
“I want to burn it firmly into my eyes, and even more so, into my heart,” Yui said on the social platform X. “Soon, I too will become one of those small lights on the ground.”
NASA officials had said it was riskier to leave the astronaut in space without proper medical attention for another month than to temporarily reduce the size of the space station crew by more than half. Until SpaceX delivers another crew, NASA said it will have to stand down from any routine or even emergency spacewalks, a two-person job requiring backup help from crew inside the orbiting complex.
The medical evacuation was the first major decision by NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman. The billionaire founder of a payment processing company and two-time space flier assumed the agency’s top job in December.
“The health and the well-being of our astronauts is always and will be our highest priority,” Isaacman said in announcing the decision last week.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
This screengrab from video provided by NASA TV shows the SpaceX Dragon departing from the International Space Station shortly after undocking with four NASA Crew-11 members inside on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)
This screengrab from video provided by NASA TV shows the SpaceX Dragon departing from the International Space Station shortly after undocking with four NASA Crew-11 members inside on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)
This photo provided by NASA shows clockwise from bottom left are, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui gathering for a crew portrait wearing their Dragon pressure suits during a suit verification check inside the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory module, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)
