ATLANTA — There are plans, there are contingency plans, and then there’s what manager Dave Roberts had to do Tuesday at the All-Star Game.
His National League had blown a two-run lead in the top of the ninth and then failed to score in the bottom of the frame, triggering the first iteration of the All-Star swing-off: a three-player, three-swing home run derby to win the game.
Roberts had to set up his three-man swing-off lineup, with one alternate, on Monday, and he opted to go with sluggers Eugenio Suárez of the Diamondbacks, Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies and Pete Alonso of the Mets, with the Marlins’ Kyle Stowers as an alternate. (Players such as Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman weren’t available, given that they would be leaving the ballpark several innings prior.)
“I just figured that two guys that had been in Home Run Derbies before [Schwarber and Alonso] was sort of a no-brainer,” the Dodgers’ manager said afterward. “And I’ve seen Suárez take batting practice, and when he touches it in batting practice, it goes 400 feet. So I felt that that was a pretty easy choice as well. And the Stowers one … I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use him, and it just kind of worked out that way.”
In the eighth inning Tuesday, Suárez took a pitch off his hand and had to leave the game, promoting Stowers into action once the swing-off came around. Then Schwarber — now a designated hitter — told Roberts that he never takes batting practice on the field anymore, only from within a cage. So all of a sudden, Roberts found himself with an unexpected trio in a brand-new contest.
Nonetheless, on a night that honored generations of Atlanta Braves, it was a rival Phillie who stole the show and won the MVP. Schwarber, equipped with a new bat after breaking his previous one on a “100-mph sinker from Aroldis [Chapman]” drilled three straight homers with his three swings to give the National League a 4-3 victory in the swing-off and a win in the 95th Midsummer Classic. The victory was just the senior circuit’s fifth in the past 28 All-Star Games.
Early innings: NL jumps to a quick lead
First-pitch times in marquee baseball events are a suggestion at best, and this All-Star Game began a full 25 minutes after its scheduled start time. Between a performance from Ludacris and Jermaine Dupri (“Welcome to Atlanta,” of course), an introduction of both starting lineups featuring gyrating dancers, a flyover, multiple rounds of fireworks, a marching band and a first pitch from Braves legend Chipper Jones, starting pitchers Paul Skenes of Pittsburgh and Tarik Skubal of Detroit had plenty of time to get loose and figure out how to face down what might be the toughest lineups they’ll see all year.
Skenes hasn’t even thrown two full seasons in the majors, but he already handles these marquee moments like a 10-year veteran. While firing a steady stream of four-seam fastballs at the American League’s top three, he struck out the Tigers’ Gleyber Torres and Riley Greene, then induced the Yankees’ Aaron Judge into a harmless groundout to second baseman Ketel Marte. Skenes also delivered some heat, hitting 100 mph four times in his frame.
That brought Judge’s fellow titan Shohei Ohtani to the plate to start the bottom of the first, and Ohtani quickly rapped a single off Skubal to short center field. Hometown favorite Ronald Acuña Jr. stepped into the box to the cheers of the Atlanta crowd, and after tipping his helmet, he legged out an infield hit. Arizona’s Marte then snaked a double down the right-field line to score Ohtani and Acuña easily. Just like that, Skubal looked like he was in a world of trouble, but he didn’t get the start in the All-Star Game because he wilts under pressure.
Instead, after Freddie Freeman grounded out to short, a bit of baseball history followed. On an 0-2 pitch to San Diego’s Manny Machado, Skubal challenged the call of a ball from home-plate umpire Dan Iassogna. Baseball’s new ABS challenge system revealed that the pitch was indeed a strike, and thus Machado got rung up. Dodgers catcher Will Smith then struck out on three pitches, ending the inning with the National League up 2-0.
L.A.’s Clayton Kershaw started the second inning for the NL and recorded two quick outs before being lifted for San Diego’s Jason Adam. After Skenes had whipped nothing but high-90s (or 100) gas in the first, Kershaw never topped 89 miles an hour. Chicago’s Kyle Tucker bailed him out with a sliding catch of Home Run Derby champ Cal Raleigh’s fly ball …
… and Kershaw’s tip of the cap to the Atlanta crowd after his two batters had a ring of farewell to it. Make of that what you will.
Middle innings: Slow start, hot finish
After the starters get their run, baseball’s All-Star Game becomes a scorekeeper’s nightmare, with both managers swapping in players all over the field. This is the point when the fans of each franchise hope to get a glimpse of their representative players … and hope he doesn’t do something dumb like strike out or make a game-deciding error.
Roberts began the position-player overhaul when he gave Freeman a curtain call in the top of the third, and the Atlanta crowd offered up a respectful round of applause for their former franchise icon.
The AL mounted its first real threat of the evening in the fourth, when the Big Dumper and Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. stroked back-to-back two-out singles. But the Mets’ David Peterson snuffed out the budding rally, inducing Baltimore’s Ryan O’Hearn into a soft, inning-ending comebacker.
There’s a reason these pitchers are All-Stars, too, and through five and a half innings, outside of Skubal’s first frame, both leagues’ pitchers kept the opposition in check. As the pitchers’ duel wound on, the most exciting moment in the middle innings came when mascots from around the league dumped sacks of popcorn onto the fans as DJ Snake’s and Lil Jon’s “Turn Down For What” skittered. (Sure, defensive battles have their own charms, but the run of scoreless innings didn’t exactly thrill the fans, especially after Acuña was replaced.)
And then, right when the crowd was starting to realize how quickly this game was progressing, the National League threw open the barn doors. Leading off the bottom of the sixth, San Diego’s Fernando Tatis Jr. drew the first walk and stole the first base of the game. The Cardinals’ Brendan Donovan followed with an infield squibber, setting the stage for the Mets’ Pete Alonso.
As expected in his rival ballpark, Alonso received the loudest boos of the evening every time his name was announced; he took it all with a smile and wave. Then he neatly flipped the boos into cheers by turning on a 94-mph fastball from Kansas City’s Kris Bubic, rocketing it 367 feet into Truist Park’s right-field restaurant.
That opened up the very real possibility that a hated Met would be the game’s MVP in Atlanta.
Three batters later, Arizona’s Corbin Carroll drilled a 414-foot homer of his own to right, and with three innings remaining, the NL held a 6-0 lead.
Final innings: The AL finds its bats
An impressive, technology-driven tribute to Hank Aaron’s record-breaking 715th home run in April 1974 led off the game’s final stretch with a proper touch of history and perspective.
That was enough, apparently, to inspire the American League to get up off the deck in the top of the seventh. Toronto’s Alejandro Kirk singled, and Tampa Bay’s Jonathan Aranda walked, setting up Brent Rooker’s 407-foot homer off San Francisco’s Randy Rodríguez that halved the NL’s lead.
The next batter, Kansas City’s Maikel Garcia, walked, stole second, advanced to third on a throwing error and soon afterward scored on a groundout, leaving the AL just two runs short at the seventh-inning stretch.
Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski, the five-start rookie whose controversial addition to the NL roster dominated much of the pregame chatter, pitched the eighth inning for the NL. All he did was throw 18 pitches, nine of which exceeded 100 miles an hour, to shut down the American League and validate his place in this exhibition.
San Diego’s Robert Suarez followed Misiorowski in the ninth, and that’s where the drama began. Suarez allowed doubles to Minnesota Twin (and Georgia native) Byron Buxton and Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr., drawing the American League within one run. The Mets’ Edwin Díaz replaced Suarez — to another round of boos from the Atlanta fans — and induced Jazz Chisholm Jr. into a slick groundout to Atlanta’s Matt Olson before Cleveland’s Steven Kwan slapped a slow infield roller that scored Witt and tied the game 6-6.
Seattle’s Randy Arozarena struck out on three straight pitches (the final one another successful challenge), and the game continued into the bottom of the ninth. When the National League’s final three batters failed to score, the game went to the inaugural All-Star Swing-Off.
Bonus round: The Swing-Off
In the Swing-Off, each manager selected three players to take three swings apiece. The team that amassed the most homers in its nine swings would be the All-Star Game champion.
Rooker led off for the AL, smacking two homers in three swings. Stowers followed with a single longball. Arozarena blasted one more for the AL before Schwarber, despite boos from the provincial Braves fans, blasted his three straight moon shots to give the National League a one-homer lead heading into the final frame.
When Aranda couldn’t launch any of his swings over the fence, the National League, with Alonso waiting on deck, claimed the swing-off victory 4-3.
“It was interesting,” Schwarber said afterward. “I was a little nervous … I’m just trying to put it in my head: If I can get two here, Pete can finish it off.”
He did a little better than that, sending all three of his blasts deep and, in the process, winning All-Star Game MVP — the first non-pitcher to do so without recording a hit in regulation.
“He came up huge. Dino Ebel, our pitching coach, came up huge. It was a lot of fun,” Roberts said. “And the cool thing is that we got to see the players were all into it, too.”
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