Here are Hot Stove Philly’s MLB All Star selections:

AL

1B:     Miguel Cabrera, DET (19HR/60RBI/.326AVG)

2B:     Robinson Cano, NYY (14/50/.362)

3B:     Evan Longoria, TB (12/52/.298)

SS:      Derek Jeter, NYY (8/39/.279)

C:        Victor Martinez, BOS (9/37/.297)

OF:     Josh Hamilton, TEX (17/53/.339)

OF:     Carl Crawford, TB (7/38/.307/26SB)

OF:     Alex Rios, CWS (13/38/.313/20)

DH:     Vladimir Guerrero, TEX (15/58/.324)

SP:      Colby Lewis, TEX (7-4, 3.07 ERA, 90K)

NL

1B:     Adrian Gonzalez, SD (16/58/.315)

2B:     Martin Prado, ATL (7/31/.336/21(2B))

3B:     Scott Rolen, CIN (15/46/.303)

SS:     Hanley Ramirez, FLA (11/.43/.292)

C:       Miguel Olivo, COL (10/32/.300)

OF:    Ryan Braun, MIL (10/47/.306

OF:    Chris Young, ARI (12/49/.273)

OF:     Corey Hart, MIL (18/54/.272)

SP:     Ubaldo Jimenez, COL (13-1, 1.60, 95)

Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts died Thursday morning at the age of 83, according to the Philadelphia Phillies. His cause of death was not immediately known.

Roberts spent 15 years with the Phillies, including as a member of the famed 1950 Whiz Kids. He also spent time with the Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs, compiling a 286-245 record with a 3.41 ERA for his career.

He pitched in a time when endurance was the norm. Over the course of 609 career starts, Roberts threw over 300 innings in six straight seasons. He acrued a total of 305 complete games, including a stretch of 28 in a row.

During the 1950 season, Roberts, a 20-game winner, started three of the Phillies’ final five games, including their Pennant clinching victory over the Brooklyen Dodgers. It was the Phillies’ first Pennant in 35 years and the first time a Phillies pitcher had won 20 games in a season since Grover Cleveland Alexander did it in 1917.

Roberts would win 20 games every season from 1950 to 1955, and led the NL in wins from 1952 to 1955. He won a career-high 28 games in 1952.

He retired in 1967 and would go on to be the coach of the University of South Florida baseball team from 19777-85.

In a surprising move, the Philadelphia Phillies announced Monday that they have signed first baseman Ryan Howard to a five-year extension worth $125 million. The deal reportedly contains a club option for a sixth year, which would increase the contract’s worth to $138 million.

The five-year extension will pay Howard $20 million in each of the 2012 and 2013 seasons and $25 million per year from 2014-16. The club option is worth $23 million with a $10 million buyout. The deal also reportedly contains a limited no-trade clause.

Howard is currently making $19 million a season after he agreed to a contract renegtotiation in 2008. That deal was worth $54 million over the final three years of his contract. At the time, the expectation was that those would be the final three years Howard would be a member of the Phillies.

Here are some amazing statistics, courtesy of David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News.

In his major league career, Howard has won the National League Rookie of the Year and MVP awards in successive seasons (2005-06), is a two-time NL All-Star (2006, 2009), won a Silver Slugger Award (2006) and was named MVP of the National League Championship Series last year. In his MVP season of 2006, Howard set a Phillies single-season record with 58 home runs and is the all-time franchise leader in postseason RBI (27).

Since becoming an everyday player on July 1, 2005, Howard leads all major league players in home runs (222) and RBI (650). Last season, Howard became just the fourth player in major league history to have four straight 40 home run/130 RBI seasons, joining Hall of Famer Babe Ruth (7), Ken Griffey Jr. (4) and Sammy Sosa (4), and the fastest player ever to 200 home runs (658 games), besting Ralph Kiner’s previous record by 48 games.

Through 18 games, Howard is batting .275 with three home runs and 16 RBI.

According to a report by Philadelphia Daily News reporter David Murphy, Philadelphia Phillies’ manager Charlie Manuel announced on a Sirius XM satellite radio show Wednesday morning that shortstop Jimmy Rollins suffered what Manuel is calling “between a Grade 2 and 1″ calf injury that will sideline him for the forseeable future. That was confirmed in a press release Wednesday afternoon by general manager Ruben Amaro, Jr.

Rollins underwent an MRI on Tuesday after suffering the injury during pregame warmups before the Phillies’ home opener on Monday. Amaro announced that they were placing Rollins on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to April 13.

“We believe it to be a mild to moderate strain and we’re hopeful it will be a two-to-four week recovery,” said Amaro. “As in all of our injuries, precautions will be taken so that Jimmy is 100% when he returns to the field.”

The news comes as a blow to the Phillies, who, along with their shortstop, are off to one of the best starts in their history. The Phillies, notoriously bad in April, lead the majors in almost every offensive category, are the only team in the majors with only one loss and their new ace pitcher, Roy Halladay, was named the National League Player of the Week for the first week of the season.

Rollins, who has often been criticized as being a poor leadoff hitter, is having the best start of his 11 year career. In 23 at bats so far this season, Rollins has nine hits, including three doubles and a triple, a batting average of .391 and a .516 on base percentage, both well above his career average. Rollins already has seven walks, but has only struck out twice. The former MVP had only 44 walks all of last season.

Juan Castro will start at shortstop while Rollins is on the disabled list and likely bat eighth in the lineup. Centerfielder Shane Victorino, who had been batting sixth, will lead off.

Infielder Wilson Valdez has been called up from Triple-A Lehigh Valley.

Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins was scratched from Monday’s home opener after he suffered what appeared to be a calf strain during warmups. He was replaced by Juan Castro at short.

According to Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com, Rollins suffered was is being called a “a Grade 2 strain of his right calf muscle – an injury that usually requires a trip to the disabled list – while completing a final few wind sprints before the first pitch.”

Rollins was not available for comment after the Phillies’ 7-4 victory over the Washington Nationals, but according to those who saw him the leave the stadium, he was not moving well.

“Personally, from my experience, it’s not fun,” said centerfielder Shane Victorino said. “It’s a frustrating thing, especially for a guy who runs, who needs his legs, who needs his speed. Hopefully, it’s not as bad as mine.”

Rollins could be placed on the disabled list and miss up to 2-4 weeks. He is scheduled to undergo an MRI on Tuesday.

If Rollins did have to miss time, it would be a particularly tough blow to the Phillies, as he is having one of the best starts of his career. Through 23 at bats, Rollins is batting .391 with one homerun and three RBIs. The difference is his batting average, on base percentage (.516) and seven walks, all of which would be career highs. That being said, the Phillies believe they are well prepared.

“We’ve been doing this for about 4 years now,” manager Charlie Manuel said. “Let me tell you something – just because somebody goes down, we’re going to continue right on playing. We’ve got guys who like to play, and we’ve got some guys sitting on our bench who can get the job done.”

Castro, who was told that he was starting just minutes before gametime on Monday, had just one hit, but it was a key RBI double during the Phillies’ five run fifth inning. He is a career .230 hitter. If Rollins does miss any time, Victorino will likely bat leadoff with Castro batting seventh or eighth.

STEVEN M. FALK / Staff photographer

Jimmy Rollins was fine in pregame ceremonies.

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“Personally, from my experience, it’s not fun,” Victorino said. “It’s a frustrating thing, especially for a guy who runs, who needs his legs, who needs his speed. Hopefully, it’s not as bad as mine.”

Phillies’ shortstop Jimmy Rollins has once again stirred the pot of controversy, this time by questioning his own front office.

While on Dan Patrick’s Radio Show, Rollins reignited the debate of why the Phillies couldn’t keep Cliff Lee when they traded for Roy Halladay.

“I have no idea. I’m sure we could afford him. We turned nearly 4 million people through the turnstiles last year. I don’t know. You should have (Phillies GM) Ruben (Amaro) on here… When the trade happened, I actually got a text from Jayson Werth and he was like, ‘What are we doing?’ And I was like, ‘Didn’t we get Halladay?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, but we traded Lee.’ And my mouth dropped like, ‘That wasn’t part of the deal.’

“I really don’t know. I thought we had enough to keep him. I thought we could have done enough to keep him. I guess that’s just a move the Yankees do… That’s just the truth. The Yankees would have been like, ‘Hey, we got a chance to keep both of them. We’ll pay them both for a year or two and we got a chance to win a championship.’”

(The transcript is from Sports Radio Interviews. You can find the audio here.)

While I would certainly have loved for the Phillies to have both Lee and Halladay at the top of their rotation, I don’t fault Amaro for making the move. I understand his desire to not entirely deplete the team’s farm system. And I also understand the counter argument that their window is now and they need to put the best team on the field possible to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox.

Regardless of how you feel about the Lee move, it’s disingenuous for Rollins to gripe that the Phillies haven’t done enough to put a World Series caliber team on the field. Yes, they traded Lee, but they also acquired the best pitcher in baseball. They’re paying Ryan Howard $18 million a year. They have the best second baseman in baseball and one of the best outfields in baseball. Their new third baseman is a Gold Glove fielder and one of the better contact hitters in the game. Not to mention that they tolerate Rollins being the worst leadoff hitter in baseball history (I may be exaggerating there, but not by much).

This is just another example of Rollins sticking his foot in his mouth. In 2008, he called out the Philadelphia fans as being too fairweather and harsh. He apologized a couple days later after the fans erupted in outrage.

Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk over at NBCsports.com made a good point in his column Thursday that,

Of course, it’s not like Rollins has any special insight as to whether trading him was the right move. Veterans will always, always, always prefer to keep their fellow veterans on a team over making trades that will help replenish the system with prospects.

Nevertheless, I think it’s inappropriate and disingenuous for Rollins to call out Amaro like that. I’m not saying he has to tow the company line all the time, but his complaints are unwarranted.

He’s right, the Phillies aren’t the Yankees. They don’t own their own network and don’t play in the biggest media market in the world. But they have the fourth highest payroll in baseball.

And that ain’t nothin to sneeze at.

It was one year ago today that Harry Kalas, The Voice of the Philadelphia Phillies, collapsed in the broadcasting booth of Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., and died at the age of 73. Kalas will be forever be remembered for his majestic voice and historic calls, as well as a man who never forgot how lucky he was. Frank Fitzpatrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer has a stirring article in today’s paper of Kalas’ final moments.

There will no doubt be many tributes and remembrances written about HK today, so rather than doing the same, I have posted a couple stories I wrote last year.

We miss you Harry.

Harry Kalas, the Hall of Fame voice of the Phillies, dead at age 73

I still find the current sports culture in Philadelphia surreal. I still find it hard to believe that the two of the biggest sports stories yesterday, including the biggest story (the news that the Eagles had traded Chris Gocong, Sheldon Brown and some other guy), included Philly sports teams.

I still can’t believe that not only did the Phillies win the World Series in 2008, but they got back there in 2009, and are a favorite to make it back for a third straight time in 2010.

I still have trouble believing that not only do the best players in baseball, including the best pitcher of the past decade, want to play for the Phillies and that they now have the luxury of casting off recent Cy-Young award winners like so much yesterday’s news.

Before yesterday, the Phillies have won their season opener just three times since 2000. They have had a winning record in their first ten games of the season just once since 2000, when they went 7-3 in 2001. They have been outscored in those first ten games in all but two years since 2000. And they haven’t had a shut-em-down pitcher since Curt Schilling in the 1990s.

So it was no surprise that yesterday’s impressive 11-1 thumping of the Nationals was, you got it, surreal.

Not only did the Phillies rattle off 11 runs (more than a third of the runs they scored in the first ten games of 2004), but their starting pitcher allowed just one run on six hits through seven innings while striking out nine. Harry Leroy Halladay threw 19 pitches in the first inning, but ended the game after throwing a total of just 88 pitches.

The Phillies, who are notoriously bad and slow in April, scored 11 runs, including a grand slam by newcomer (again) third baseman Placido Polanco. Leadoff hitter Jimmy Rollins went 2-for-4 with an RBI, two runs scored and a stolen base. Polanco had a career high six RBIs. Slugger Ryan Howard hit his first homerun of the season, a shot that I think is still rolling through the streets of D.C.

This team can hit so yesterday wasn’t really all that much of a surprise. But getting out of the box like this hasn’t been business as usual for the Phillies. I didn’t think this team could get any better. But then again, I’ve been surprised before.

After meeting with Phillies’ team physician Michael Ciccotti, it was determined that starting pitcher Joe Blanton will be placed on the 15-day disabled list to the start the season. Blanton suffered a mild oblique strain during a bullpen session on Wednesday that will need between three to six weeks to heal, Ciccotti said.

This will be the first time in his six-year career Blanton will need to go on the disabled list.

The news comes on the heels of a report on Wednesday that closer Brad Lidge received a cortisone shot in his right elbow on Tuesday, further setting back his recovery from two off-season surgeries. Lidge is also expected to start the season on the DL.

The injury to Blanton means that Kyle Kendrick will start the season in the rotation. Kendrick spent the Spring battling Jamie Moyer for the fifth spot in the starting rotation, and despite pitching some of the best baseball of his career (he allowed just four earned runs in 21.2 innings), lost out to the veteran left hander.

Should the Phillies suffer another injury to the starting rotation while Blanton is out, it is not entirely clear who they would call in to fill in. The team is thin on experienced starting pitching despite signing veteran righthander Josh Fogg on Wednesday to a minor league contract. Fogg is 62-69 with a 5.03 ERA in nine seasons with the White Sox, Pirates, Rockies and Reds.

According to Philadelphia Daily News Phillies beat writer David Murhphy, the top candidates in Triple-A Lehigh Valley would be lefthander Joe Savery and righthander Andrew Carpenter.

There are no clear good options should the need arise and Murphy believes that, considering the Phillies traded away Cliff Lee in the offseason, it is unlikely that they will make another deal to bring a pitcher in.

If the Phillies’ pitchers can stay healthy then this will all be a moot point, but as Murphy points out in his column today, that is always far from a sure thing. Not to mention that all injuries inevitably have what he calls a “trickle down effect.” Murphy goes on to explain that, “Losing Blanton from the rotation means losing Kendrick from the bullpen. Which leaves a hole and no obvious replacement.”

Only time will tell but with just four days until the season opener, the state of the Phillies’ pitching is certainly not where they would like it to be.

Photo courtesy of David Swanson / Philadelphia Inquirer Staff photographer

Wednesday was a bad day for the Phillies’ pitching staff.

First, we learned that closer Brad Lidge received a cortisone shot for inflammation and soreness in his right elbow. The Phillies’ claim it is only a minor setback in his recovery from two off-season surgeries, one of which was on the inner part of his right elbow. The soreness is on the outer part of the elbow and is something Lidge normally has in spring training.

“Coming into spring training, every year Brad has some lateral — or outer — elbow soreness,” said Phillies’ team physician Michael Ciccotti. “It’s just part of his reconditioning routine. Because he started a little bit later this year with his throwing because of those two surgeries, that soreness has lingered a little bit longer. Normally it resolves by the second or third week in March.”

The soreness, however, has lasted longer than normal, which could explain why Lidge’s velocity remains in the high 80′s. According to Ciccotti, Lidge’s timetable for return remains mid-April, although the home opener on April 12, an earlier target, is unlikely.

Shortly after the news about Lidge broke, the Phillies’ new ace, Roy Halladay, was touched for four runs in the first inning during a Grapefruit League matchup against his former team, the Toronto Blue Jays. He would settle down in the second and third innings and the outing is not a cause for concern. It was simply a tune up for Monday’s season opener in Washington.

“I wasn’t aggressive,” Halladay said. “I just kind of guided pitches. [I] just didn’t really make an adjustment until later on. Obviously, the second and third were a lot better. It’s a good reminder — you go out there and kind of pick and be too cautious instead of just throwing the ball aggressively. It felt like it got better after that.”

After the game, news broke that Joe Blanton, currently slated as the Phillies’ third starter, injured an abdominal muscle during a bullpen session. General Manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. said that Blanton would meet with Ciccotti on Thursday.

“He may have tweaked it,” Amaro said. “We’ll check him out tomorrow [Thursday].”

Asked if there was a chance Blanton could open the season on the disabled list, Amaro said, “We’ll know more tomorrow.”

Blanton allowed 11 hits and 11 runs in five innings in a minor-league game on Monday. If he should have to miss any time, Kyle Kendrick will fill in as the fifth starter. Kendrick battled Jamie Moyer for the last spot on the starting rotation and had his strongest Spring yet.