David Aardsma belongs in the All-Star Game. The Seattle reliever has been on a lights-out roll since inheriting the closer’s role six weeks into the season.

Russell Branyan deserves to meet his teammate in St. Louis. A case could be made that the journeyman first baseman has been Seattle’s Most Valuable Player over the first half of the schedule.

But Aardsma, who is 17-of-18 in save opportunities and, by my unofficial estimation, has worked the count to 0-2 on every batter he’s faced since June 1, is a victim of the annual numbers crunch that leaves a few good men home during the All-Star break.

So is Branyan, who already has matched his big-league career high for home runs in a season – he’s got 20 – but occupies a position (first base) where it’s difficult to compile peerless power stats.

Rather than contrive outrage about the rule requiring every team to be represented by at least one player in the Midsummer Classic, or lament the fact Seattle is not a mainstream market, here’s a different take: It’s for the best.

Sure, Aardsma, 27, would have treasured his invitation as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Same with the 33-year-old Branyan. The chance for first-timers to walk into a clubhouse and mingle with baseball’s household-name crowd is one of those subtle delights that keeps the All-Star Game relevant.

But as much fun as the extravaganza would be for Aardsma and Branyan (and their families: wives and kids go, too), their absence from the American League roster announced Sunday is still for the best, because All-Star games have not always been kind to the Mariners.

More specifically, the aftermath of All-Star games have not always been kind to the Mariners. Take reliever J.J. Putz, named to the AL team in 2007. Enjoying the season of his dreams that summer – he hadn’t blown a save in almost 10 months, and was honored as the league’s Pitcher of the Month for June – Putz briefly came to know what it’s like to be Mariano Rivera.

Ninth inning, one-run lead, middle of the opponents’ batting order due up? No sweat. Three up, three down.

Assigned to protect a 5-2 lead at the 2007 All-Star Game, Putz retired two batters in the ninth before Dmitri Young’s routine grounder took a bad hop that eluded second baseman Brian Roberts. A two-run homer by Alfonso Soriano made the score 5-4, and when the flustered Putz walked J.J. Hardy, manager Jim Leyland replaced him with Frankie Rodriguez.

Although the AL staved off a two-out, bases-loaded threat to win, Putz surrendered his Mariano Mystique then and there. Within a few weeks, his string of consecutive save opportunities would be broken at 30, and he would lose his first decision on an eighth-inning homer off the bat of the Rangers’ weak-hitting Ramon Vazquez.

Two years after his All-Star Game invitation, Putz’s season with the Mets has devolved into a bad-karma payback for 2007: Everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong.

He managed to save 40 games and win Reliever of the Year honors in 2007, but if a line could be drawn on when his career went south, it would be drawn in San Francisco, at the 2007 All-Star Game.

A similar line could be drawn for former Mariners closer Kazuhiro Sasaki.

Before the 2002 All-Star Game, his ERA was 1.36, with 21 saves. After the All-Star Game, his ERA was 3.90, with 16 saves. The following season, Sasaki had his dubious suitcase-on-the-staircase injury, and went back to Japan.

Another Mariners All-Star from 2002– the last AL pitcher used in the infamous 7-7 tie at Milwaukee – was Freddy Garcia, who was selected on strength of his 11-5 record and 3.44 ERA. In his first start after the fiasco at Miller Park, Garcia was shelled at Tampa Bay. Then he was shelled at Anaheim. He finished 16-10, but was 5-5 after the break.

Garcia struggled in 2003, then was traded midway through 2004. Again, if a line could be drawn where Garcia’s problems with the Mariners began, it would be drawn in Milwaukee, at the 2002 All-Star Game.

Are you smelling a trend?

Keep sniffing.

Shigetoshi Hasegawa was 1-0, with a 0.77 ERA, before his selection as an All-Star in 2003. Afterward, he was 1-4, with a 2.73 ERA. Two mediocre seasons later, neither of which produced a save, Hasegawa was released.

The All-Star fallout trend extends beyond Mariners pitchers. It affects everybody from original 1977 All-Star Ruppert Jones – he had 17 homers at the break; he hit more than 17 home runs only twice the rest of his career – to Alvin Davis in 1984 (18 homers before, nine homers after), to Jeffrey Leonard in 1989 (who went from 15 homers and 58 RBI to nine homers and 35 RBI) to Jose Lopez in 2006, (25 RBI in May, 21 RBI after the All-Star Game).

Lopez has revealed a tendency for second-half slumps. And it would be foolish to apply a word so strong as “jinx” about Seattle’s All-Stars, because Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson and Ichiro never regressed after the break.

On the other hand, Edgar Martinez, a few weeks removed from his All-Star appearance in 1996, turned a rare start at third base into a serious collision with catcher John Marzano over an infield pop-up.

Edgar ended up missing 21 games; the Mariners ended up in second place.

And then there was 2001, when an astounding eight players represented Seattle for the All-Star Game at Safeco Field. Garcia earned the victory, Sasaki closed it out. A perfect day befitting a perfect season.

Well, almost perfect, until the Yankees showed up for the playoffs.

Final thought: Don’t let the rejections of Aardsma and Branyan overshadow the fans’ vote for Ichiro, or the league’s appointment of Felix Hernandez to the pitching staff. All-Star honors are standard-issue stuff for the outfielder selected as the 2007 All-Star Game MVP, but it should rank as a highlight for Hernandez.

He deserves it, and I hope his night on the biggest, brightest baseball stage in the world is as fun for him as it figures to be for us.

But you might want to keep your my fingers crossed.

john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com