Clayton Kershaw might be the best pitcher in the major leagues, but he will not start the All-Star Game.

Again.

Adam Wainwright of the St. Louis Cardinals will start for the National League in Tuesday’s All-Star Game, NL Manager Mike Matheny announced Monday. Matheny, the manager of the Cardinals, earned the right to manage the NL team because the Cardinals beat the Dodgers in last year’s NL championship series.

Neither Wainwright nor Kershaw, each a four-time All-Star, has started an All-Star game previously.


For the second consecutive year, Kershaw was a runner-up.

With the All-Star Game at New York’s Citi Field last season, National League Manager Bruce Bochy started Mets rookie Matt Harvey. Kershaw respected Bochy’s desire to start the hometown pitcher but was not thrilled that Bochy said this of Harvey: “It wouldn’t have mattered what city we were playing in with the year he’s had.”

“That’s his opinion,” Kershaw said then, curtly.

Kershaw added: “It hurts.”


Wainwright is 12-4, with a 1.83 earned-run average that ranks second in the majors to Kershaw. In June and July — the months in which Kershaw has soared the highest — Wainwright was 4-1 in seven starts, with a 1.03 ERA.

Wainwright, 32, also has pitched 42 more innings and started five more games than Kershaw, who did not pitch in April because of a strained muscle in his upper back.

Kershaw, 26, is on pace to lead the major leagues in earned-run average for an unprecedented fourth consecutive season. He is 11-2 with a 1.78 ERA. His ratio of 11.8 strikeouts for every walk is the best among major league starters.

He pitched a no-hitter last month, and his just-ended streak of 41 consecutive scoreless innings was the third-longest in the majors since Orel Hershiser set the record of 59 in 1988.


In his last eight starts, he is 8-0 with a 0.74 ERA. He joined Sandy Koufax (1966) and Juan Marichal (1967) as the only pitchers in the last 100 years to win eight consecutive starts with at least seven strikeouts in each.