A second Home Run Derby of sorts in as many days captivated audiences at the 95th Major League Baseball All-Star Game from Truist Park in Atlanta, Ga. on Tuesday night, with it being the first midsummer classic in history to be decided by the recently-introduced “swing-off” competition. But in between many of the longballs into the humid southern night was straight heat, courtesy of some familiar faces to local baseball fans.
Taking the mound Tuesday was Stanislaus State alumnus Joe Ryan and former Modesto Nuts standout Bryan Woo, who each tossed scoreless frames to keep the American League in striking distance in a contest that ended up tied 6-6 after nine frames.
Woo, who spent about a month in Modesto in the summer of 2022, was first to be called upon by AL manager Aaron Boone of the New York Yankees. In his first career All-Star action in a 2-0 game in favor of the NL, the 25-year-old Seattle Mariners fireballer tossed a scoreless third inning in which he struck out Braves superstar Ronald Acuna Jr., induced a groundout from Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte, and forced a soft lineout by Pete Alonso of the Mets.
Ryan, who pitched for the Warriors in 2018, relieved Woo in the fourth frame. The Minnesota Twins ace also had a perfect outing, as he clocked in at over 95 mph on nine of his 10 pitches en route to striking out Manny Machado of the Padres and Kyle Tucker of the Cubs, as well as getting Dodgers catcher Will Smith to pop out.
Monday’s (actual) Home Run Derby champion, Cal Raleigh of the Mariners, was another former Nuts player to participate, as he played at John Thurman Field for most of 2019. Serving as the AL’s starting catcher, Raleigh went 1 for 2 at the plate, nabbing a single against New York’s David Peterson in the fourth inning. He was robbed of extra bases in his first at-bat in the second inning when Tucker made a sliding catch at the warning track.
Also named an All-Star this year was Mariners star Julio Rodriguez, who played alongside Raleigh in Modesto during the 2019 campaign. He opted not to participate in Tuesday’s contest, though.
Taking home the Ted Williams Most Valuable Player Award was Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber, who homered on all three of his swings in baseball’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shootout, with the game decided by having three batters from each league take three swings each off coaches. Concerned about running out of pitchers in an era when no All-Star throws more than one inning, Major League Baseball and the players’ association made the change in 2022.
“That’s kind of like the baseball version of a shootout,” Schwarber said after watching his final home run overcome a two-homer deficit in the swing-off.
His heroics held up when Tampa Bay’s Jonathan Aranda fell short on the American League’s final three swings, giving the National League a 4-3 swing-off win after a 6-6 tie in which it wasted a six-run, seventh-inning lead.
Schwarber, who was 0 for 2 with a walk at the end of nine innings, became the first non-pitcher MVP without a hit.
Boone picked Athletics slugger Brent Rooker, Mariners star Randy Arozarena and Aranda on Monday, and Los Angeles Dodgers manager and NL skipper Dave Roberts picked Arizona’s Eugenio Suárez, Schwarber and Alonso for his squad. Because Suárez was hit on the left hand by a fastball in the eighth inning, the NL turned to its alternate, Kyle Stowers of the Miami Marlins.
Rooker was first up to swing. His 20 regular season home runs leads the A’s, with Turlock native Tyler Soderstrom a close second with 18. Rooker’s 54 RBIs is also two less than the team-leading Soderstrom. The star DH proceeded to give the AL an early advantage by homering on his last two swings, while Stowers went on to hit one. Arozarena boosted the AL lead to 3-1.
Schwarber took two pitches and deposited the third just over the center-field fence. He took another, then hit a 461-foot drive over the right-center bullpen. After letting two more go by, he dropped to a knee while pulling the third, craned his neck and held his bat in the air as the ball landed in the fourth row of the Chop House seats.
“I didn’t hit it, obviously, my best, but I was thinking I got enough of it,” Schwarber said. “And I was just kind of down there, hoping, saying: go, go, go. And it went. And it was awesome.”
Aranda followed with a fly well short of the center-field warning track, drove a pitch about a foot shy of the top of the right-field wall and hit an opposite-field pop that dropped in medium left.
Alonso, a two-time Home Run Derby champion, didn’t have to bat and patted Schwarber on the head as fireworks went off at Truist Field.
“I felt like a closer going into a game,” Alonso said, “and then it’s like, wait, the guy in the field got a double play to end the inning. You’re not going in.”
MLB, after consulting with the Elias Sports Bureau, said in 2022 that All-Star Games ending in a swing-off would be listed as tied, with a notation of the game being decided in a swing-off. MLB’s official postgame notes listed Tuesday’s outcome as a 7-6 NL victory.
Ketel Marte’s two-run double in the first inning had put the NL ahead, and Alonso’s three-run homer off Kansas City’s Kris Bubic and Arizona’s Corbin Carroll’s solo shot against Detroit’s Casey Mize opened a 6-0 lead in the sixth.
The AL comeback began when Rooker hit a three-run pinch homer against Randy Rodríguez in a four-run seventh that included an RBI groundout by Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals. San Diego’s Robert Suarez allowed consecutive doubles to Byron Buxton of the Twins and Witt with one out in ninth, and Cleveland’s Steven Kwan’s infield hit on a three-hopper to third off Mets closer Edwin Díaz drove in the tying run.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
