HOUSTON -- A's second baseman Jed Lowrie, left off the American League All-Star squad, was "surprised and disappointed" by the news.
"That sums it up," Lowrie said Monday afternoon.
Lowrie, however, could still be Washington-bound with teammate Blake Treinen as a replacement for injured Yankees rookie Gleyber Torres, who was selected as Jose Altuve's backup through the player polls. Torres is on the 10-day disabled list with a right hip strain.
"There's still a chance," Lowrie said, "so I guess I'm still hopeful."
The A's, though, are stunned that it's come to this, and for good reason. Lowrie's 16 home runs and 62 RBIs lead all AL second basemen, he's batting .290 with an .864 OPS and has put together 32 multihit games.
"I've been doing this for a little while, and I can't remember a tougher one than this one," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "You look at his numbers, he's an All-Star, and they're better than maybe some of the starters.
"I mean, if you're looking at the season ending right now, he would get MVP votes. So I have a hard time believing he's not an All-Star, so hopefully he ends up being on the team because he definitely deserves it."

Following Sunday's announcement, Houston starter Justin Verlander took to Twitter to point out a flaw in the All-Star selection process, noting that players are asked to vote "waaay too early." This, Lowrie agreed with, as players were asked to turn in their votes more than two weeks ago.
Lowrie is 27-for-80 (.338) with seven home runs and 20 RBIs over his last 21 games.
"I'm disappointed that I didn't win the player vote," he said, "but I'll just let my numbers speak for themselves."
"Every team has to be represented," Melvin said. "Therefore, there are going to be guys every year that get left out because of it. I understand that all the teams need to be represented, but when something this significant happens to a guy that's having this type of year -- whether or not you can add more guys, I don't know, but this doesn't seem fair to him."