The National League bested the American League Tuesday night at Truist Park in Atlanta in one of the most entertaining All-Star Games in quite some time. The AL erased a 6-0 deficit in the final three innings, putting them in position for what would have been the largest comeback win in All-Star Game history, but the NL prevailed in the tiebreaker swing-off.
“We finally beat these guys. They seemed to have our number over the last decade,” Dodgers and NL manager Dave Roberts said about the senior circuit winning for only the second time in the last 12 All-Star Games. “But there’s just a lot of talent in both leagues. But tonight, we got the best of them.”
The swing-off tiebreaker rule was put in place in 2022 as a way to avoid boring ties and burning through pitchers. Tuesday was the first time it was actually used. Each side picks three players, the three players take three swings each, and the most homers wins. Kyle Schwarber went 3 for 3 in his round, propelling the NL to a 4-3 swing-off win and earning himself MVP honors.
“Dave asked yesterday, pretty much just asked, if there’s a tie, would you do it? I said absolutely, not thinking that we were going to end up in a tie when you say yes,” Schwarber said about being chosen for the swing-off. “And then as the game’s going, you’re looking at the score, you’re not really thinking the game’s going to end in a tie.”
As Schwarber noted, the swing-off players are selected a day in advance. The rules are laid out clearly in the collective bargaining agreement. Article XV(N)(4)(a) explains how players are selected:
(a) Following announcement of the All-Star Game rosters, the Association, the Office of the Commissioner, and the manager of each League’s All-Star Team shall work together to encourage player participation in the tiebreaker and solicit player interest in participating. In the event that the parties have not identified at least three (3) players from each League’s active roster who have agreed to participate in the tiebreaker by the Saturday prior to the All-Star Game, the Association and the Commissioner’s Office shall meet and confer and use best efforts to secure the requisite number of participants. Thereafter, the manager of each League’s All-Star team shall select (i) three (3) players on his team’s active roster who have agreed to participate in the All-Star tiebreaker (“tiebreaker selections”), if applicable; (ii) one (1) alternate player from his active roster who has agreed to participate in the All-Star tiebreaker, if necessary due to injury to a tiebreaker selection; (iii) an All-Star team coach who will throw batting practice during the All-Star tiebreaker; and (iv) an All-Star team bullpen catcher who will catch during the All-Star tiebreaker.
In English, that means each team selects three players and one alternate in case of injury in advance, and the players must agree to participate. The manager can’t simply tap a guy on the shoulder and say “go hit.” On Tuesday, Kyle Stowers was used as the injury replacement for Eugenio Suárez, who took a pitch to the hand in the eighth inning. (X-rays were negative and Suárez is fine.)
“Eugenio got hit in the hand. So I had to replace him with my starfish, Kyle Stowers. That’s his new nickname, starfish,” Roberts explained. “So had to replace him.”
MLB hits home run with All-Star Game swing-off in exhilarating Midsummer Classic
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Stowers, Schwarber, and Pete Alonso hit for the NL in that order, though Alonso wasn’t needed. The AL sent Brent Rooker, Randy Arozarena, and Jonathan Aranda to hit in that order. Aranda went 0 for 3 with the AL down 4-3, ending the swing-off. Capable home run hitters, all of them, but the question has to asked: Where were Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh, and Shohei Ohtani?
There is a good answer to this. First and foremost, Judge and Ohtani were gone by time the swing-off took place. It is common for All-Star starting position players, particularly veterans with multiple ASGs under their belt, to leave the ballpark early so they can enjoy the rest of their All-Star break. Judge did his postgame media session in street clothes long before the swing-off.
“Shohei was long gone,” Roberts said when asked why Ohtani didn’t hit in the tiebreaker. “But I think what it was is you had to declare three guys with one alternate before the game. And so we went around and sort of polled the guys and figured out who was going to be in the back half of the game, kind of thing like that.”
Raleigh, the MLB leader with 38 home runs, started the All-Star Game and was removed in the middle of the sixth inning. He did stay until the end of the All-Star Game though. He was in full uniform as he stood in front of the dugout during the swing-off, yet he was only an interested observer, not a participant.
In Raleigh’s case, he was out of the game for about 90 minutes before the swing-off. Asking him to get hot again and go hit in the tiebreaker is an unnecessary injury risk. The All-Star Game is an exhibition and, above all, it is each manager’s duty to make sure no one gets hurt. Sending Raleigh back up there after an hour and a half of inactivity is asking for him to pull an oblique.
Perhaps it’s fair to criticize Yankees manager Aaron Boone, the losing manager, for his swing-off picks even while acknowledging Judge, Raleigh, and other starters were unavailable for one reason to another. After all, Aranda has 11 home runs this season, not exactly a gaudy total. The players do have to agree to the swing-off, remember, and it’s possible some guys just declined.
One star AL player, Bobby Witt Jr., was ready to go for the swing-off though, but wasn’t asked to participate.
A miscalculation on Boone’s part, seemingly. That said, the AL didn’t have many true power hitters in their lineup by the end of the night. Among players in the game at the time, Boone’s alternatives to Aranda were Witt and Byron Buxton, then non-power hitters like Steven Kwan, Maikel Garcia, Zach McKinstry, and Alejandro Kirk. Aranda was as good a bet as any of those guys.
In the end, the game’s top power hitters — Judge, Ohtani, Raleigh, etc. — did not participate in the swing-off either because they simply were no longer at the ballpark or because they had been out of the game and cooled down for a long period of time. Boone almost certainly does not think Aranda is a better home run hitter than Judge. There were still plenty of great hitters available to hit on both sides. The NL just happened to get best of the AL in the swing-off.
“I think it’s a good idea, just for the fact of we’re not hopefully putting more people at any other kind of risk. We’re not playing more innings, things like that,” Schwarber said about the swing-off. “… But yeah, when that happens, you’re more thinking, one, it’s really probably not going to happen. Then it does happen. Just excited that it was able to work out for us.”
