Episodes five and six of “Between Two Palm Trees” deal with Clayton Kershaw‘s Justin Bieber heartthrob status and A.J. Ellis trying to solicit a ticket to the All-Star Game.

A.J. needs to jump out of the chair and try to strangle Clayton or something, just so I can get GIF material out of it.

Episode one here. Episode two here. Episodes three and four here.

Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw are the two Dodgers who will represent the team at the 2012 All-Star Game.

Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw are headed back to the All-Star game.

Kemp and Kershaw were selected to their second National League All-Star teams Sunday. Both players made their All-Star debuts last year.

Both played well enough, but both partially got in due to name recognition…

Excluded from the team were Andre Ethier, who is tied for third in the NL with 55 runs batted in, and Chris Capuano, who is 9-3 with a 2.69 ERA.

…which is exactly why it’s hard to complain about Andre Ethier and Chris Capuano getting left out. Especially when Zack Greinke and James McDonald didn’t even make it.

Yahoo! Sports: Jeff Passan writes about MLB‘s ridiculous blackout policy.

I wrote about my issues with it here.

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FanGraphs: Dave Cameron‘s “Stat Nerd NL All-Star Roster” includes A.J. Ellis and Clayton Kershaw, but Andre Ethier just misses.

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Baseball Prospectus: Doug Thorburn dissects the slide step and doesn’t think it’s worth implementing.

It is my contention that most pitchers would do better if they both A) went faster from the windup, and B) kept their natural leg lift from the stretch. Pitch execution is the single-most important facet of every play on the diamond and the epitome of the phrase, “baseball is a game of inches.” It is therefore insane to continue throwing a wrench into 40 percent of a pitcher’s deliveries in an attempt to stop a once-per-game occurrence for which the pitcher is only fractionally responsible.

Great article.