White Sox' Chris Sale is 2013 All-Star Game top player in AL win

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White Sox pitcher Chris Sale is Box-Toppers All-Star Game Player of the Day.

Sale pitched two perfect innings Tuesday, struck out two and earned the win as the American League beat the National League 3-0. 

Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, pitching in his final All-Star Game, was named the game Most Valuable Player after pitching the eighth inning, allowing no hits and no runs. 

Sure, picking Rivera, who is retiring after a brilliant and long career, is more a sentimental than logical choice. And choosing the top player in an All-Star Game is a bit of a fool's errand. The game has the feeling of a presidential ceremonial bill signing in which the president uses 15 different pens to sign a bill, so that key backers can each get a souvenir. This pen is used to make the "B," this to make the "a," and so on. In the All-Star Game, pitchers who are normally conditioned to throw seven to nine innings, are brought out to throw a ceremonial one or two innings—this one makes the "r," and this one makes the "a." In these conditions, it's hard to really determine who is the top player of the game any more than one can determine the pen that truly made the difference in the presidential bill signing.

For this year, we'll say Sale. True, his appearance was limited, but he did pitch two innings (scribbling the proverbial "c" and "k" of the presidential signature), more than any other AL pitcher.

Since it is the All-Star Game and it is an exhibition, no Box-Toppers points are awarded. (Sale has 10.7 Box-Toppers points for the season, ranking 10th among all players and third among AL pitchers.) 

Following the results chart below, we'll show the process of how a Box-Toppers Player of the Game is determined, using Tuesday's All-Star Game as our example:

 

716ScoreTeamBATTERSABRHRBIBBSO--PITCHERSIPHRERBBSO
MLB4.0American League 000000000Chris Sale (W, 1-0)2.000002

Determining Box-Toppers Players of the Game

The chart below shows all players from the winning American League team who appeared in Tuesday's game. They are ranked in order of their Box-Toppers game score, from highest to lowest.

Sale, the top player, had a game score of 4.0.  (How the Box-Toppers game score formula works.) Joe Nathan, Rangers closing pitcher, was in second with 2.0. The top batter was Jason Kipnis of the Indians with 1.0. He and Salvador Perez of the Royals had identical scores of 1.0, but Kipnis breaks the tie because he has more RBIs. Rivera, the game MVP, has a Box-Toppers game score of 1.0.

Moving down the list, 14 players had Box-Toppers game scores below 0.0. 

 

ScoreTeamBATTERSABRHRBIBBSO--PITCHERSIPHRERBBSO
4.0American League 0000000  Chris Sale (W, 1-0)2.000002
2.0American League 0000000  Joe Nathan (S, 1)1.010002
2.0American League 0000000  Max Scherzer 1.000001
1.1American League 0000000  Brett Cecil (H, 1)0.000001
1.1American League 0000000  Steve Delabar (H, 1)0.000001
1.0American League Jason Kipnis 2B101100  00.000000
1.0American League Salvador Perez C111000  00.000000
1.0American League 0000000  Grant Balfour (H, 1)1.000011
1.0American League 0000000  Matt Moore (H, 1)1.000000
1.0American League 0000000  Mariano Rivera (H, 1)1.000000
0.0American League Prince Fielder 1B101000  00.000000
0.0American League Jhonny Peralta SS101000  00.000000
0.0American League Jose Bautista RF100101  00.000000
0.0American League 0000000  Felix Hernandez (H, 1)1.010000
0.0American League Robinson Cano 2B000000  00.000000
-0.9American League 0000000  Greg Holland (H, 1)0.010000
-1.0American League Miguel Cabrera 3B311001  00.000000
-1.0American League Adam Jones CF311002  00.000000
-1.0American League Joe Mauer C201000  00.000000
-1.0American League J.J. Hardy SS200100  00.000000
-1.0American League Torii Hunter PH, CF100000  00.000000
-1.0American League Manny Machado 3B100001  00.000000
-1.0American League Nelson Cruz RF100010  00.000000
-1.0American League Alex Gordon LF100000  00.000000
-2.0American League Mike Trout LF, CF301000  00.000000
-2.0American League Chris Davis 1B301001  00.000000
-2.0American League Dustin Pedroia PR, 2B200001  00.000000
-2.0American League David Ortiz DH200000  00.000000
-2.0American League Edwin Encarnacion PH, DH200000  00.000000