Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com reported Tuesday that the Washington Nationals first overall draft pick, Bryce Harper, was named the 2010 Golden Spikes Award Winner, an award given annually to the top amateur baseball player in the country.

Harper hit .443 with 31 home runs and 98 RBI in 228 at-bats as a 17-year-old freshman for the College of Southern Nevada this season. His impressive power, as well as his 1.513 OPS made him a lock for the award in which he trumped the competition by receiving 28 votes.

Harper became only the fourth-ever player to be selected as a Golden Spikes finalist from anything other than a division 1 collegiate program. The College of Southern Nevada is a junior college which Harper attended after testing out of high school early. The would-be high-school senior also became only the second non division 1 athlete to win the award.

It has been reported that the Nationals have yet to speak with Harper or agent Scott Boras about inking a deal to land the phenom talent, however this news comes as a surprise to few who remember the handling of Stephen Strasburg's (another Golden Spikes Winner) contract just one year ago.

The Nationals have until August 15 to sign Harper.

Your 2010 All-Star Game Line-Up

Tonight at 8pm ET, the National League All-Stars will take on the hosting American League All-Stars at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, CA. Here are tonight's starting line-ups in the Big A:

National League

Hanley Ramirez, SS (Florida Marlins)

Martin Prado, 2B (Atlanta Braves)

Albert Pujols, 1B (St. Louis Cardinals)

Ryan Howard, DH (Philadelphia Phillies)

David Wright, 3B (New York Mets)

Ryan Braun, LF (Milwaukee Brewers)

Andre Ethier, CF (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Corey Hart, RF (Milwaukee Brewers)

Yadier Molina, C (St. Louis Cardinals)

Starting Pitcher- Ubaldo Jiminez (Colorado Rockies)

American League

Ichiro Suzuki, RF (Seattle Mariners)

Derek Jeter, SS (New York Yankees)

Miguel Cabrera, 1B (Detroit Tigers)

Josh Hamilton, CF (Texas Rangers)

Vladimir Guerrero, DH (Texas Rangers)

Evan Longoria, 3B (Tampa Bay Rays)

Joe Mauer, C (Minnesota Twins)

Robinson Cano, 2B (New York Yankeses)

Carl Crawford, LF (Tampa Bay Rays)

Starting Pitcher- David Price (Tampa Bay Rays)

After writing about Washington's infielders and largely ignoring him, I knew I'd have to turn back to the subject of hyped Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond.

The first half has been disappointing for Desmond, both offensively and defensively. He has fallen short of not only the rosy predictions of Thomas Boswell but also the more conservative projections of ZiPS (.264 BA, .322 OBP, .399 SLG, .323 wOBA. Desmond currently has a .255 BA, .297 OBP, .395 SLG, and .303 wOBA.

When I first saw the numbers I got frightened that Ian Desmond would become the next Brian Anderson, a top prospect who suffered through a terrible rookie season which simply would not end, and then failed to ever reach his potential, presumably because of the mental and emotional damage done in that rookie season. Brian Anderson was so screwed up, in fact, that-after demanding a trade he had no right to demand, he has now decided to become a pitcher.

There won't be any pitching in Desmond's future, or at least there shouldn't be. His updated ZiPS projections (.258 BA, .306 OBP, .397 SLG, .313 wOBA) are not impressive, but if they turn out to be accurate, then Desmond should be about in the middle to the bottom end of shortstops this season, as far as offense goes.

One thing that will go a long way toward improving his production will be plate discipline, something he seems to be aware of. Believe it or not, 35.1% of the pitches Desmond swings at are outside of the strike zone which is the 5^th highest amongst 21 offensively eligible shortstops. He also swings at 66.5% of the pitches he sees, 8^th highest amongst shortstops. Both of these indicators exhibit fairly strong inverse correlations with BB% (-0.71 and -0.65 in 2009 respectively). If Desmond can discipline himself (stop swinging at pitches outside of the zone, swing the bat less often in general), then he should see his BB% and OBP rise, making his low BA much more tolerable.

With the All-Star game just a day away, here at The Nats Blog we will take a sneak peak at the top five stories that we feel our readers should be interested in.

1. This time, it counts

The last few years, Bud Selig has allowed the winning league of the All-Star game maintain home field advantage in the World Series in an effort to trumpet more interest into the exhibition. I strongly disagree with this scenario.

An exhibition game should not have the impact in determining home field advantage in the World Series. As has been the case for many years prior to this development, the team with the best record entering the World Series should maintain home field advantage. That team spent 162 games establishing themselves against all opponents and should have earned the right to host the World Series if they have the better record.

A second reason why I strongly dislike this aspect of the game is that many of the players in Tuesday's game will not sniff the playoffs this year. Do managers and fans of potential playoff teams really want the status of home field advantage coming down to a bases loaded situation with Evan Meek on the mound facing Ty Wigginton?  Absolutely not.

2. American League Domination

The last time the National League won an All-Star game, Derek Jeter was yet to win a ring, LeBron James was 11-years old and the Atlanta Braves were defending world champions. The NL went 0-for the 2000s, not including the 2002 tie game.

But, every game since 2005 has been decided by two runs or fewer, with the last four being decided by one lonely run.

On paper, it's hard to challenge the American League's superior offensive power. Any time you can boast a line-up that could potentially slot Carl Crawford ninth is hard to pitch to. But, pitching is something the National League certainly has. The NL can run out Ubaldo Jiminez and his 15 wins to start, and follow him up with Josh Johnson, Roy Halladay, Adam Wainwright, then march out the closers to finish it, anchored by the massive Jonathan Broxton.

As we do each week of the season with the help of Accuscore, it is time to see how last weeks games impacted the division playoff race. The Braves and Phillies are carrying the momentum going into the All-Star break, while the Mets are just happy to stay away from the ballpark for a few days after suffering some setbacks in the division race thanks to a series loss at home by Atlanta. The Phillies swept the Reds in four games to put their chances up to 32.2%, but the Braves are still in control, leading the east with a 58.7 percentage. Like we have seen in past years, the divison could come down to who came out of the gate fastest after the All-Star break.

Week 14

Stephen Oh on the NL East:

The Braves had a tough road schedule @Philadelphia and @the Mets, but they still managed to go 4-2 and pick up 18 percent in the playoff race. The Phillies managed to recover from their losses to Atlanta with a crucial 4 game sweep vs the Reds. The Mets meanwhile did not recover from the losses to Atlanta and the +18 that Atlanta picked up came at the expense of the Mets who lost -18.7 percent.

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This Stephen Strasburg character is pretty good at pitching. He's got the lowest xFIP (xFIP is, in my opinion, the best free pitching metric available. It appropriately weights events under a pitcher's control-like Ks and Bbs-and ignores events not under a pitcher's control-ERs and, controversially, HRs.) in the Majors and, not surprisingly, was the best Nationals pitcher in June and it's looking like the same will be true in July.

Unless, that is, Livan Hernandez catches up to him. That's right, Livan has had one great start and one O.K. start to give him a an xFIP of 3.44 in July, nearly the same as Strasburg (3.34 xFIP in July). Livan's ERA has also risen as predicted, mostly due to a pretty bad June (5.12 ERA in June). Despite his recent success, I'd still like to see the Nationals phase Hernandez out of the rotation to let Chien-Ming Wang, Scott Olsen, Jordan Zimmerman, Jason Marquis, and the rest of the other Nationals rotation get some experience when they all come off of injury. Also, wouldn't it be great if someone fell for Hernandez's low ERA (3.12) around before the trade deadline passes?

Luis Atilano's demotion was predictable given his bad starts in July, but it shouldn't be too troubling a sign considering how well (compared to his prior performances) he pitched in June (3.98 xFIP in June, second best on the team). He will be back after the All-Star break.

Craig Stammen is walking a thin line; his success in June (4.19 xFIP in June) will soon be forgotten is he continues to pitch even worse than Atilano in July (6.07 xFIP for Stammen versus 5.58 xFIP for Atilano in July). His xFIP is still second best on the team, however, behind Strasburg.

Despite grabbing a 5-3 lead behind the bats of Ryan Zimmerman and Mike Morse, the Washington Nationals bullpen faltered allowing six earned in the final three innings to fall to San Francisco 10-5.

The Nats got to Giants starter Jonathan Sanchez early Saturday night. The 28-year-old lefty entered the game with his career best numbers boasting a 7-6 record and a 3.15 ERA in 17 starts, but his lack of control in the first inning would find him catching up from the get-go.

Sanchez surrendered walks to Justin Maxwell and Cristian Guzman to start the first before allowing a run scoring double to Ryan Zimmerman. After striking out red-hot Adam Dunn, Sanchez's control would do him in again as a wild pitch scored Guzman from third.

A lead-off homer in the second from Mike Morse, and a two-run rally in the fourth would chase Sanchez from the game.

Tyler Clippard would serve the unfamiliar role of the scapegoat as the previously dominant reliever allowed four earned runs on two hits and two walks while only recording a single out in the seventh inning. The outing nearly raised the hard throwing righty's ERA a whole point, rocketing it from 2.63 to 3.31.

The 25-year-olds struggles stemmed from his inability to throw strikes early and often. Clippard threw 33 pitches in the inning, only 16 for strikes. The only pitch that worked for him was his changeup which he threw for a strike  8/12 times and forced three swinging strikes. His other pitches didn't fair so well as the righty threw only 6/12 fastballs for strikes, 1/5 sliders, and 1/4 cutters.

Tyler Clippard has emerged as the go-to-guy in the Washington Nationals bullpen. He currently leads the 'pen in IP thanks to 14.1 IP in June. He is third in FIP and fourth in xFIP on the team, mostly due to his lucky HR/FB of 4.3% which is far below his career line of 9.1%.

Inexplicably, Miguel Batista has the second most IP in the bullpen. He is the 5^th worst reliever in the Majors in terms of xFIP out of relievers with 30 IP or more and he was the team's worst reliever in June. He has, however, been the best option for the Nats this month on the strength of 9 Ks in 5 IP. Don't expect him to keep it up.

Tyler Walker's injury last June was unfortunate as his xFIP is still better than Clippard's. Joel Peralta has pitched well in Walker's absence (3.59 xFIP), however.

Despite his three blown saves in June, Matt Capps is pitching well as he continues to keep his walks low (0.63 BB/9 in June and July) and Ks high (5.65 K/9).

Drew Storen and Sean Burnett have Tyler Clippard disease, which is a very good disease to have indeed: both pitchers have low HR/FB rates (0% and 4.2% respectively) explaining their deflated FIPs and ERAs. I doubt they will both continue to pitch this well for the rest of the season, especially Storen. Oh, and Doug Slaten has the same disease (5.3%) but he doesn't attract nearly as much attention.

The Nationals bullpen is a tough one to figure out. In June, the bullpen ranked 5^th in terms of FIP and 22^nd in terms of xFIP in the Majors. The difference is less extreme for the full season, 11^th in FIP and 17^th in xFIP, but it does raise an important question: Are the Nats getting lucky? This really comes down to whether you think HR/FB is something beyond a pitcher's control or not. The evidence seems to point to the fact that whether home runs get hit or not has much more to do with the batter than the pitcher. Whatever the case, luck sure is great when it's on your side.