Tony La Russa makes sense picking Matt Cain for NL starting pitcher

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Tony La Russa made the right choice in picking Matt Cain. Perhaps he wasn't the most compelling choice — it's hard to beat the narrative of knuckleballer R.A. Dickey's season — but Cain is a very good pitcher having a great year. And we're talking about picking the starting pitcher for the All-Star Game, here. It's not that cut and dried. And it's not that important. The starting pitcher goes an inning, two or three in extremes. And looking at the numbers, Matt Cain passes pretty much any litmus test you can make for him. On the AL side, Ron Washington picked Justin Verlander of Detroit to start and there's no credible reason to complain about that, so don't even bother. Verlander is almost always worth the price of admission. In explaining his Dickey decision Monday afternoon, La Russa said he liked the idea of pairing Cain and his teammate on the San Francisco Giants, catcher Buster Posey. Further, Posey reportedly doesn't have much, if any, knuckleball receiving experience. So Dickey instead can pitch to Carlos Ruiz of the Phillies, who can at least warm him up in the bullpen. And, again, we're talking about picking the starting pitcher for...