When the National League recorded a dramatic 3-2 victory over the American League in the 2023 All-Star Game at T-Mobile Park in Seattle on Tuesday night, it ended the AL’s nine-straight win streak. That was the second-longest streak in All-Star Games history (dating back to 1933), behind the NL’s 11-game streak from 1972-1982.
The dominance went even further, with the AL holding a record of 27-6-1 since 1988 after the NL started 41-16-1. But now the NL has gone full throttle with their first All-Star Game win since 2012 at Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, an 8-0 win.
A little symmetry? The winning pitcher in 2012 was the Giants’ Matt Cain, and Tuesday’s winning pitcher was the Giants’ Camilo Doval, who pitched a scoreless seventh inning. These are the only two Giants to have been the winning pitcher in the All-Star Game since Vida Blue in 1981.
• Rockies catcher Elias Díaz – a 32-year-old making his first All-Star Plate appearance – changed the game with his two-run home run early in the eighth inning to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 leadership that became the bottom line. It was the first time an NL player had hit a home run in the eighth inning or later since Jeff Conine’s eighth-inning solo shot in 1995 ended the 2-2 tie. He was the last NL player to do so with his team. The backlog came in a Battle of Hall of Famers between Mike Schmidt and Rollie Fingers in the eighth inning of the 1981 Midsummer Classic.
• Overall, Díaz became the sixth player in All-Star Game history to hit a home run eighth or later from behind. He follows Hank Blalock (AL, 2003), Schmidt (NL, 1981), Cookie Rojas (AL, 1972), Gus Bell (NL, 1954) and Ted Williams (AL, 1941, in walk-off fashion).
• Díaz not only hit the game-changing home run, but also did it against Orioles closer Félix Bautista, who hit two batters per inning in the first half, with a 1.07 ERA. Díaz made it with a 2-2 splitter. Opponents this season are 9 of 112 (.080) with one home run and 84 strikeouts in two-strike counts against Bautista, who has only allowed three long balls in 152 plate appearances that ended in slivers in his regular-season career .
• For his efforts, Díaz was named All-Star Game MVP, becoming the first Rockies player to receive the honor. He is the sixth catcher to win the award, after Brian McCann (2010), Sandy Alomar Jr. (1997), Mike Piazza (1996), Terry Steinbach (1988), and Gary Carter (1981, 1984).
• With the Rockies adding to the list, 26 of the 30 franchises since the award was first presented in 1962 have named a player All-Star Game MVP. The four still looking for one are the Cardinals, the D-Backs and the Tigers and White Sox.
(The other) Díaz goes deep
• Elias wasn’t the only Díaz to leave the stadium in Seattle on Tuesday night. The Rays’ Yandy Díaz opened the scoring with a solo home run on Mitch Keller in the second inning. He was the third Tampa Bay player to hit a home run in the All-Star Game, alongside Mike Zunino (2021) and Carl Crawford (2007).
• Tuesday was the first time two players with the same last name hit a home run in the same All-Star game, according to STATS.
• Luis Arraez, who was chasing a .400 season in the first half, continued in the All-Star Game. In his two plate appearances, the starting NL second baseman jumped on the first pitch he saw to block base hits from Nathan Eovaldi and George Kirby. He scored his second goal in the deciding run in the fourth inning. Since 1988, the first year pitch counts have been closed, Arraez has been the only player with a multi-hit all-star game to hit on every pitch he saw.
• Aside from Arraez, the only other players with multiple first pitch hits in a single All-Star game since are Lorenzo Cain for the AL in 2015, Derek Jeter for the AL in 2000 and Lance Johnson for the NL in 1996 1988
• Arraez became the fourth Marlin with a multi-hit All-Star Game after Hanley Ramirez in 2008, Mike Lowell in 2002 and Gary Sheffield in 1993.
• During that scoreless seventh inning, Doval threw eight pitches at over 100 miles per hour, becoming only the third pitcher in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008) to throw eight or more pitches that fast in the All-Star Game threw. Ryan Helsley threw eight radiators at over 100 mph in last year’s game, while Aroldis Chapman threw 13 throws in the 2015 competition.
• The highlight of Doval’s inning was a showdown against hometown favorite Julio Rodríguez of the Mariners. A five-pitch battle featuring four pitches 100 mph and three pitches 101 mph culminated in Doval J-Rod sniffing a 1-2 cutter over the zone. The 101.2 mph heater was the fourth-fastest All-Star Game strikeout pitch in the pitch-tracking era, behind just three bids from Chapman in 2015 (103.4 mph, 103.2 mph per hour and 101.5 miles per hour).
• JD Martinez scored a 2-on-2 with a double, becoming the first Dodger with a multiple-hit All-Star Game since Mike Piazza in 1996. Only 10 Dodgers have had two or more hits in a Midsummer Classic ; Steve Garvey has done it three times.
• Speaking of the Dodgers, Will Smith grabbed the game’s only stolen base and finished second in the eighth inning to former teammate Kenley Jansen. He became only the third catcher in All-Star Game history to steal a sack, after Iván Rodríguez (1998) and Tony Peña (1982).
• On the other side, both starting catchers (NL’s Sean Murphy and AL’s Jonah Heim) threw out a runner who was trying to steal. Murphy’s caught stealing was the first in the All-Star Game since Alex Avila snapped Lance Berkman in a strike ’em out, throw ’em out double play in 2011. This was the first ASG with multiple caught stealing plays since 2008 (by catchers Dioner Navarro and Russell Martin).
• Sometimes you see things in the All-Star Game that you would never see in a typical game. An example? The Phillies’ Nick Castellanos landed at the bottom of the fifth round for the NL, replacing Mookie Betts in midfield — a position he hasn’t held in the majors in either the regular season or the postseason.
• Two hitters named Díaz hit the ball? What if two right-handed pitchers named Gray pitch a scoreless inning in the third? Sonny did the work for the AL and Josiah for the NL.
• When Eovaldi pitched the second inning for the AL, he did so in front of five starting teammates: Heim as catcher, Marcus Semien at second base, Josh Jung at third base, Corey Seager at shortstop, and Adolis García at right field. Not only did Texas become the fifth team in ASG history to have five players on the starting grid (and the first since the 1939 Yankees), they also became only the third team to have six players on the field simultaneously at the Midsummer Classic had. The 1939 Yankees managed this feat, as did the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers.