Believe it or not I actually got a prediction right. I had the National League winning the Major League Baseball All-Star game last night and thank to Elias Diaz of the Colorado Rockies they did. To be fair I also predicted that Justin Steele of the Chicago Cubs would be the winning pitcher. That was a tough pick, but I’m taking the “W” on picking the game right.
It would be great if I could tell you that I broke down all this information or used some type of algorithm or analytic to make my pick, but that wasn’t how I did it. Honestly, I heard three or four experts and then a couple of television show hosts pick the American league and it just seemed like to many people on that bandwagon, so I went the other way, and it worked out. I know it wasn’t the greatest strategy, but I wasn’t betting any money on the game, so I didn’t really have anything to lose with that pick.
Now I didn’t see every pitch of every inning last night as it’s tough to sit through an entire All-Star game no matter what sport it is, but to be fair the MLB All-Star game is the closest to the actual game it portrays than any other sport.
What I didn’t notice was that for a league that seems to push offense there wasn’t a ton of it last night. There’s an old line that says, “good pitching beats good hitting” and that seemed to be the case last night.
The teams combined for 5 runs and 16 hits while striking out 20 times. There were 5 extra base hits, 3 doubles and 2 home runs. The American League had 3 of those extra base hits while the National League had 2. Juan Soto of the San Diego Padres was the only player to get 3 at bats in last night’s game. J.D. Martinez of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Luis Arraez of the Miami Marlins were the only players with 2 hits in the game. Of course, no one should be surprised that Arraez had a multiple hit game even in an All-Star game.
20 pitchers took the mound in last night’s game, 9 of them from the National League and 11 from the American league side. Every National League pitcher threw one full inning and only one of them gave up more than one hit in their inning. Due to what appeared to be an injury to Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano the American League ended up having 4 pitchers throw less than an inning. 3 American League pitchers gave up 2 hits while they were on the mound, but 4 American league pitchers recorded 2 strikeouts while they were pitching.
Camilo Doval of the San Francisco Giants picked up the win last night. Josh Hader of the San Diego Padres was the set-up man and got the hold while Craig Kimbrel of the Philadelphia Phillies got the save. Felix Bautista of the Baltimore Orioles took the loss for the American League.
Diaz was named the game’s Most valuable Player and he is the first player in the history of the Rockies to win the All-Star game MVP award. Diaz is the 24th player to homer in his first career All-Star Game at-bat. Earlier in the game Yandy Diaz of the Tampa Bay Rays became the 23rd player to homer in his first All-Star game at bat.
Last night’s win broke the National Leagues 9 game losing streak. Before this win the National Leagues last win was in 2012. Will have to wait until next season to see if the National League can start a streak of All-Star game wins.
The Major League Baseball 2024 All-Star game will be hosted by the Texas Rangers and played at their new Globe Life Field.
So how much of the MLB All-Star game did you watch? Did you manage to see the majority of it like I did or were you able to see every pitch of every inning? Or maybe you weren’t interested and did watch at all.
The players get one more day off before the regular season resumes on Friday. Every team will be in action on Friday as the playoff races heat up.
I hope you’ll look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.
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