The 2026 MLB All-Star Game is intended to be a clash of the best hitters and pitchers in baseball. In reality, it is a clash of the best hitters and the best pitchers … who didn’t start the previous weekend.
Every year, a wave of All-Star pitchers are declared ineligible for an inning or so of work in the exhibition due to how their schedules line up. If a starting pitcher takes the mound on Sunday, he is not expected to pitch two days later in the All-Star Game.
However, contrary to popular belief, those pitchers aren’t ineligible to pitch. Current MLB rules open the door for them to throw as long their club’s usage request is accommodated, but that’s such a fleetingly rare event that Sunday starters are considered nonfactors as far as the All-Star Game goes.
If an All-Star starting pitcher is scheduled to pitch the Sunday before the game, he can be replaced on the All-Star roster. A pitcher also can’t be named a replacement All-Star if he’s pitching Sunday — to the enormous ire of Philadelphia Phillies star Zack Wheeler.
Here are the aces who are out for Tuesday because of what they’ll be doing on Sunday:
Those are three significant losses for the NL, especially Misiorowski, the flame-throwing front-runner for the Cy Young Award.
And it’s not just Sunday starters who will be affected, as some teams might be hesitant to allow their star pitchers to throw an inning in the Midsummer Classic three days after a start on Saturday.
Here are the four All-Star pitchers scheduled to start Saturday:
It remains to be seen if pitching Saturday affects those pitchers’ availability for Tuesday, though the Yankees and Dodgers have both indicated they’re not thrilled about the idea of their star arms doing both.
An AL squad without Cy Young front-runner Cam Schlittler loses some of its luster. And an NL squad without Misiorowski, Skenes, Yamamoto or Sánchez, who got shelled in his previous start, is certainly a deflating idea.
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