2024 MLB All-Star Recreation: High 4 takeaways

Main League Baseball held its 94th All-Star Recreation on Tuesday evening in Texas, the primary to be hosted by the Rangers since 1995. That individual Midsummer Basic featured a few of the most harmful hitters of the ‘90s, like Barry Bonds, Frank Thomas, Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr., and Mike Piazza. The MVP, nevertheless, turned out to be little-known Marlins outfielder Jeff Conine, who hit the go-ahead homer within the eighth.

The All-Star Recreation has a humorous method of churning out tales like that. Final yr’s MVP, Rockies catcher Elias Díaz, may also attest to this. Certainly, the participant who struck the decisive blow within the loaded 2024 version would have been few of us’ first guess — exterior of New England, anyway. It’s onerous to beat the near-total anonymity of a Marlin or a Rockie within the grand scheme of issues, however earlier than Tuesday, the game’s eyes weren’t precisely laser-focused on Jarren Duran.

These had been the tales of the 2024 MLB All-Star Recreation, which noticed Duran take house the MVP.

Jarren Duran calls for your consideration

Right here’s a enjoyable reality: Solely 4 place gamers in the complete American League tallied extra FanGraphs WAR within the first half than Pink Sox heart fielder Jarren Duran, who leads the AL in doubles (27) and triples (10) whereas batting .284/.342/.477 in 95 video games. The quartet forward of Duran—Aaron Decide, Gunnar Henderson, Bobby Witt Jr., and Juan Soto—all simply tallied over one million All-Star votes to advance previous Part 1. So did Steven Kwan, who was tied with Duran at 3.7 WAR.

Duran, nevertheless, wasn’t even near advancing. He was all the way in which down at sixteenth.

MLB PR

With all due respect to the AL Central-leading Guardians, I couldn’t pick Will Brennan or Tyler Freeman in a line of 100 individuals should you gave me 98 guesses. But even they collected extra votes than Duran. This was maybe a halo impact from Cleveland followers additionally exhibiting out for the deserving Kwan, however this shouldn’t have occurred to Duran, a gifted participant who occurs to don for considered one of baseball’s most well-known uniforms regularly.

So the first-time All-Star needed to make the group as a reserve. For his or her credit score, Duran’s fellow gamers acknowledged his expertise by voting him onto the AL squad themselves. It took till the fifth inning for Duran to get his alternative, when skipper Bruce Bochy put him in heart to alleviate Decide. With two outs and Anthony Santander on first base, Duran took a strike from Hunter Greene. The Reds righty then left a splitter in the midst of the zone, and Duran didn’t miss it.

Per MLB’s Sarah Langs, Duran joined Boston icon David Ortiz and J.D. Drew—the final Pink Sox participant to win All-Star Recreation MVP—as the one BoSox to go yard of their All-Star debut. He additionally gave the AL a 5-3 lead that it could not relinquish. Duran subsequently joined Drew, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, and Carl Yastrzemski in taking house this version’s All-Star Recreation MVP; it shouldn’t be forgotten that honor is formally named the “Ted Williams All-Star Recreation Most Priceless Participant Award.”

Maybe that is the highlight that Duran wanted to make his identify identified on the nationwide stage. On the very least, if he’s hitting like this once more at this level subsequent yr, he’ll do much better than sixteenth within the voting!

There’s a purpose why Shohei Ohtani was assured $700M

Wonderful, high-quality; if we wish to be technical, the precise worth of the heavily-deferred Ohtani deal is someplace within the neighborhood of $462 million. However it’s not precisely chump change, and even together with his immense fame and expertise, there have been issues about guaranteeing that a lot cash to somebody who may solely DH in 12 months 1, as Ohtani’s second main elbow surgical procedure final September put the star’s pitching profession on maintain till no less than 2025.

So 2024 has been solely about hitting for Ohtani, and the outcomes up to now most likely have MLB pitchers hoping that his consideration is diverted once more as quickly as attainable. In 94 video games for the Dodgers, he’s hit .316/.400/.635 with 29 homers and an NL-best 1.036 OPS. (Then once more, he had a 1.066 OPS final yr whereas being a two-way participant, so possibly all hope is misplaced.)

Ohtani delivered the Senior Circuit’s solely All-Star Recreation scoring when he stepped as much as bat in opposition to Boston’s Tanner Houck. Like Duran, Ohtani obtained a fats splitter that was begging to be obliterated. The magnanimous DH obliged:

4 hundred ft later, the NL had a 3-0 lead. The person is one thing else.

We’d be remiss if we did not level out that even gods might be humbled. Flamethrower Mason Miller has been one of many few vivid spots in an in any other case somber last season of Oakland A’s baseball. He was their lone rep named to the AL group, however he lifted Oakland up one final time within the All-Star highlight by hitting 103 mph whereas hanging out Ohtani and Trea Turner in an ideal fifth.

As a result of Duran went yard within the subsequent half-inning, Miller was finally credited with the win. Lengthy dwell the Oakland Athletics.

We obtained Paul Skenes vs. Aaron Decide

It’s onerous to consider that it was simply over three hundred and sixty five days in the past that Paul Skenes was chosen by the Pirates because the No. 1 general decide of the MLB Draft. Though Pittsburgh took it straightforward with him within the second half of 2023, they solely made him begin seven video games for Triple-A Indianapolis this yr earlier than calling him as much as The Present on Could eleventh. There have been excessive hopes for Skenes, however few anticipated him to blitz by means of his competitors with such dominance by means of his first 11 big-league begins. The righty primarily pressured himself into the All-Star dialog with a 1.90 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, and 12.1 Okay/9 in 66.1 innings, to not point out a pair of no-hit bids that solely ended because of the Pirates’ pitch rely restrictions.

It grew to become a no brainer for the Nationwide League to not solely identify Skenes to the All-Star group, but additionally to have him begin the dang factor. He was simply the fifth rookie in MLB historical past to start out the Midsummer Basic, becoming a member of first-year wunderkinds like Fernando Valenzuela and Hideo Nomo. With the way in which that American League supervisor Bruce Bochy organized his lineup although, it was unclear if followers would get the chance to observe Skenes go toe-to-toe with Decide, the sport’s most intimidating masher.

The Yankees’ captain was batting cleanup, so Skenes was solely assured to face the primary three AL hitters. The third, nevertheless, was Soto, Decide’s fellow celebrity in New York. Through the FOX pregame present, Soto assured that we’d get the Skenes vs. Decide showdown.

Provided that Soto’s .985 OPS is topped in MLB by solely Decide and Ohtani, the chances had been good that he can be a person of his phrase. The previous Nationals World Sequence hero additionally leads MLB with 79 walks, and positive sufficient, he stepped up with two outs and battled Skenes for seven pitches earlier than incomes an elusive free cross off the up-and-comer.

Soto later admitted that he was truly making an attempt to take Skenes deep, however settled for the stroll. Was all of it a bit anticlimactic as a result of Decide instantly grounded right into a power out on the primary pitch he noticed in opposition to Skenes? Sure. However we recognize Soto (and Skenes’) efforts.

The baseball gods appeared to understand Soto as properly, as his third-inning grounder obtained by means of the infield and went for a hustle double that helped the AL tie the sport up at 3-3 after Ohtani’s homer. Soto’s two-bagger plated each Marcus Semien and Steven Kwan, and Soto himself scored when Kwan’s underrated teammate in Cleveland, David Fry, smacked a two-out single off Logan Webb.

Do you know that this All-Star Recreation was in Texas?

Little-known reality about this yr’s Midsummer Basic: It passed off in Arlington.

In keeping with my skilled sources, “Arlington is a metropolis in Texas, west of Dallas.”

Like, they actually, actually wished you to know that it was in Texas.

They even went out of their approach to characteristic lassoing because the All-Star starters stepped onto the sector in the course of the pregame intros, and cowboy hats for the children who obtained to be on the sector with every starter.

Good factor that it didn’t really feel demeaning in any respect for some Texans to see the sports activities world as soon as once more make generalizations!

If MLB goes this over-the-top for Texas, then we higher get whacked over the pinnacle 10,000 instances with Outkast and ATLien references at subsequent yr’s All-Star Recreation in Atlanta. Host the MLB Draft at Magic Metropolis. Let the Coca-Cola Bear throw out the primary pitch. It’s most likely what all of us deserve.