ARLINGTON, Texas — On a night when baseball's pitching phenom Paul Skenes stepped on the plate for a historic All-Star start and Shohei Ohtani, the game's brightest star, crushed a home run for the National League, it was a former top prospect enjoying a breakout season who stole the show at the 2024 All-Star Game on Tuesday.
Boston Red Sox center fielder Jarren Duran completed the American League's comeback victory with a 5-3 win at Globe Life Field with a two-run homer off Cincinnati Reds pitcher Hunter Greene.
With the outburst, the first by a Red Sox player in an All-Star Game since Adrian Gonzalez in 2011, Duran became the fifth player in franchise history to be named the game's MVP and the first since J.D. Drew in 2008.
The 27-year-old Duran helped erase a deficit created when Ohtani hit a 400-foot, three-run homer off Red Sox right-hander Tanner Houck to open the scoring in the third inning. It was the first career homer by the Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter in an All-Star Game and the second by a Dodgers player since Mike Piazza in 1996. Ichiro Suzuki’s inside-the-park shot in 2007 had been the only homer by a Japanese-born player in All-Star history.
Those three runs were the only ones the National League scored in what ended up being the shortest All-Star Game (at 2 hours, 28 minutes) since 1988.
The game started with some drama.
Juan Soto's exceptional skill, the trait that has put him on track to be a first-round Hall of Fame selection, is his uncanny ability to get on base. Never before has the baseball universe, in unison, wanted to see the New York Yankees right fielder do that job more than in Tuesday's first inning.
The pressure began to mount Monday when American League All-Star manager Bruce Bochy announced a lineup that surprisingly had Yankees center fielder and leading AL MVP candidate Aaron Judge batting fourth.
That meant Judge wasn’t guaranteed to face the phenom Skenes, who was on a strict one-inning limit after just 11 career major league starts. Someone had to get on base for the American League. When Skenes retired the first two AL batters, that someone had to be Soto, or the matchup everyone wanted to see wouldn’t happen.
Soto, in true Soto fashion, did his job by drawing a seven-pitch walk to appease the masses. The drama was fleeting, however: Judge swung at Skenes' first pitch, a 100 mph fastball, and hit into a fielder's choice to end the inning.
“I was trying to throw it deep, bro,” Soto said. “But after two strikes, I was trying to work the at-bat because I wanted to make sure he faced it, too, so I did my job.”
Skenes, 22, failed to record a strikeout, but he threw five of his 16 pitches at least 100 mph, caused four strikeouts (all with his nasty sprinkler) and silenced any remaining critics who believed he didn't deserve to start the game after just 11 starts.
Skenes, one of 37 first-time All-Stars, was the first rookie to start in the All-Star Game since Hideo Nomo also started for the National League at the ballpark across the street in 1995.
Two innings after his exit, Soto appeared in a different way for the American League, hitting a grounder up the middle that he turned into a two-run double off a listless Teoscar Hernandez in center field to cut the NL lead to one run.
Two batters later, David Fry, pinch-hitting for Globe Life Field opponent Yordan Alvarez, scored Soto from second base on a tying RBI single to left field.
Duran capped the comeback victory (the American League's 10th win in the last 11 All-Star Games) with a powerful 413-foot home run off Greene over the right-center field wall.
