Schwarber, NL win first All-Star 'swing-off' to break tie

Kyle Schwarber was nervous.

He had played in Game 7 of the World Series, but he had never walked up to the plate in an All-Star Game swing-off.

No one had.

“That’s kind of like the baseball version of a shootout,” he said after homering on all three of his swings, going down to his left knee on the final one, to overcome a two-homer deficit. That held up when 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 Tuesday night in which it wasted a six-run, seventh-inning lead.

Concerned about running out of pitchers in an era where no All-Star throws more than one inning, Major League Baseball and the players’ association made the change in 2022.

In baseball’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shootout, the game was decided by having three batters from each league take three swings each off coaches.

Boone picked Brent Rooker, Randy Arozarena and Aranda on Monday, and Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts picked Eugenio Suárez, Schwarber and Pete Alonso for the NL. Because Suárez was hit on the left hand by a fastball in the eighth inning, the NL turned to its alternate, Kyle Stowers.

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.

Paul Skenes, the first pitcher to start the All-Star Game each of his first two seasons, reached 100 mph on four pitches in a perfect first. Jacob Misiorowski, a controversial inclusion after pitching in just five major league games in his rookie season, fired nine pitches of 100 mph or more in a one-hit eighth 34 days after his major league debut. The 23-year-old righty, added to the NL roster by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, reached 102.3 mph.

Four of five challenges were successful in the first use of the robot umpire in the All-Star Game



(AP Photo Brynn Anderson)