MLB All-Star Game: Shohei Ohtani, Paul Skenes shine bright, but Jarren Duran delivers victory for the American League

Russell Dorsey

ARLINGTON, Texas — You never know what an All-Star Game and week will bring as baseball’s very best face off in the annual summer showcase. And this year’s All-Star Game had a storyline for everyone. For the traditionalist, the game featured its biggest superstar being a superstar. For the casual fan, the 37 first-time All-Stars provided a look into the future of baseball.

But regardless of which side you fall on, the 94th Midsummer Classic, which the American League won 5-3, provided exactly what a game of stars should.

Shohei Ohtani just might be Thanos because the two-time MVP is inevitable. There’s something special about a player who seems to have a knack for rising to the occasion. And the fact that it’s the best player in the world doing so makes it that much better.

In the game created for stars to shine, baseball’s biggest star shined the brightest, as Ohtani crushed a mammoth, three-run shot to open the scoring Tuesday.

After working a walk in his first at-bat against Orioles ace Corbin Burnes, Ohtani clearly wanted to swing the bat in his second at-bat, this time against Boston’s Tanner Houck. Houck fell behind 2-0 before hanging a splitter over the heart of the plate, and the $700 million man didn’t miss it.

The four-time All-Star obliterated a no-doubt, 400-foot blast to the seats in right field, leaving the crowd of 40,000-plus fans at Globe Life Field stunned, almost as if they couldn’t believe that Ohtani had once again risen to the occasion. Yankees right fielder Juan Soto didn’t even move.

“In general, I haven't really hit well during the All-Star Game, so I'm just relieved that I put a good ball in play,” Ohtani said afterward. “I was really just focused on having a regular at-bat, as if I was in a regular-season [game].”

It was the first All-Star Game home run of Ohtani’s career, and with it, he became the first Dodger to homer in an All-Star Game since Mike Piazza in 1996.

There’s so much discussion in baseball about how to better market the game’s stars, and that conversation goes well beyond the All-Star Game. But if there’s one guy who doesn't need assistance in that department, it’s Ohtani, who has actually helped market the game all by himself since coming over from Japan in 2017.

Ahead of the proceedings Tuesday, the Dodgers’ superstar received arguably the biggest ovation from the sellout crowd outside of Rangers All-Stars Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Kirby Yates and hometown kid Bobby Witt Jr. Then, like he has done for the better part of a decade, Ohtani showed there’s nothing he can’t do.

“I tried to enjoy the three hours or so that I had on the same team with him because that's probably only gonna happen once a year,” NL starter Paul Skenes said postgame with a smile. “I don't know of any hitter that I've faced that's better than him in my career, so to be able to share a dugout with him was a surreal moment.”

In a jam-packed week of events, celebrities and the biggest names baseball has to offer, no moment in Arlington was more anticipated than Pirates rookie phenom Paul Skenes going toe-to-toe with the best hitters the American League has to offer. And with the stage set for greatness and the world watching, Skenes and his electric right arm took center stage.

There was no better way for Skenes to start the game than by facing baseball’s leading hitter, Steven Kwan, out of the gate. Kwan came into his first All-Star game hitting an MLB-best .352 for the Cleveland Guardians, but he popped out to second base in four pitches. Skenes got the next batter, the Orioles’ Gunnar Henderson, to ground out.

Then fans got the moment they most wanted to see. After a seven-pitch walk to Juan Soto, Skenes, maybe the game’s most electric starter right now, got to face Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, the best hitter in the world. In the battle of power-on-power, Skenes got the better of the 2022 AL MVP, as Judge grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the inning.

“From the first pitch, just being out there. I don't think I blacked out when I was out there, but I was pretty close,” Skenes said afterward. “It was cool to be on that mound. Just being able to share this with my family and have them out here and just being able to experience it.”

Skenes, who topped out at 100.1 mph in his scoreless inning, has been the talk of the baseball world since he arrived in the big leagues just two months ago. And that hype and anticipation have been backed up by an unreal start to a career, even for the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s MLB Draft.

After going 6-0 with an outrageous 1.90 ERA in his first 11 big-league starts, Skenes became just the fifth rookie pitcher in MLB history to start an All-Star Game and the first since Hideo Nomo in 1995. Given such a phenomenal beginning to his career, it will be interesting to see what the second half has in store for Pittsburgh’s rising star.

While the National League got the attention for the first three innings, the American League got their own heroics — and the last word — from another All-Star first-timer. Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran was electric for Boston in the season’s first half, and when the AL needed a jolt Tuesday, he delivered.

In his first All-Star at-bat after coming in as a defensive replacement for Judge, Duran launched a game-winning, two-run homer off Reds right-hander Hunter Greene, giving the AL a 5-3 lead in the fifth. Duran’s homer was the first by a Red Sox player in the All-Star Game since Adrian Gonzalez hit one in 2011.

The center fielder etched his name in the history books by winning the All-Star Game MVP Award — an award named after Red Sox legend and Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams. The 27-year-old Duran is well aware of the history in Boston, and you could tell after the game that his reverence for Williams and representing the Red Sox isn’t just lip service. It really means something to him.

“It's an honor,” Duran said. “Who else would I want to try and fall in the footsteps of besides a guy like that, who was not just a great baseball player but a great human being? That guy was awesome, and I'm honored to be able to have this award.”

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