ARLINGTON, Texas — If there was no such thing as a Weird and Wild column, we’d have to invent one just for the All-Star Game, if only because …
Paul Skenes happened! … And Shohei Ohtani did yet one more thing that no other human has ever done! … And we can guarantee you that the winning pitcher in this All-Star Game, a 5-3 triumph for the American League, can’t ever do again what he did Tuesday night.
Ready for us to explain? That’s what we’re here for. So let’s kick off this Weird and Wild, All-Star Game edition, with …
A trip down the Skenes slope
Hey, did you hear Paul Skenes started the All-Star Game? Has anyone mentioned that before now?
Well, you need to know these things. And that’s what the Weird and Wild column is here for. A guy took the mound to start an All-Star Game who wasn’t even playing professional baseball last year at this time. And that’s a thing we shouldn’t just breeze by in a sentence.
So let’s run through the Pirates phenom’s first (and only) inning. It won’t take long. It lasted four hitters and 16 pitches. Nobody got a hit. Nobody scored a run. But there was so much more. Let’s tell you about it.
WAIT. HE STRUCK OUT NOBODY? That would be correct. For all the speculation and bar bets you all threw out there on whether Skenes would strike out the first three hitters he faced on nine pitches, he wound up his otherwise awesome inning with zero strikeouts.
How rare was that? He’d made 11 regular-season starts. And only once had he gone through a first inning without a K. That was June 17 against the Reds. In the other 10 starts, he got 30 first-inning outs — and 18 of them were strikeouts. So this was kinda different.
In that case, how could I not ask Aaron Judge if his team considered it “a win” to make it through that entire inning without a punchout?
Judge laughed, swirled it around his brain for a second, then shook his head.
“Nah, a ‘win’ is putting some runs on the board,” he said. “So that was a draw, I think.”
BUT HE DID GET STEVEN KWAN TO SWING—AND—MISS? This was the fifth All-Star Game that Bruce Bochy has managed. You could tell he’d done this before just from the guy he stuck in the leadoff hole. That was Cleveland’s Steven Kwan, aka. That Dude Who Never Strikes Out, up there to face That Dude Who Can Strike Out Everybody.
OK, “never” isn’t quite an accurate description of how often Kwan strikes out. But at the urging of Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow, I did check out how Kwan handled high velocity.
Turns out he hasn’t swung and missed at a pitch 98 mph or harder all season. And he’s only whiffed on one pitch at 100 mph or swifter in the last three years — and that one was clocked at 102.7 mph by Jordan Hicks, on May 28, 2023.
So the Twins’ Carlos Correa told me before this game: “Steven Kwan ain’t striking out.”
Yep. Good call. Kwan fouled off 98.2 mph on the first pitch, then actually swung-and-missed on the next pitch — Skenes’ fabled splinker. Kwan eventually popped up to short.
“It was a good battle,” Kwan said afterward.
WEIRD AND WILD: “But he did get you to swing-and-miss once. When you do swing-and-miss, is that almost like a discouraging moment for you, considering how little you do that?”
“Hey, it’s baseball,” Kwan said. “The only one that matters is when you swing-and-miss at strike three.”
Paul Skenes and Steven Kwan square off. (Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)
GUNNAR SWINGS THROUGH THE HEATER. Next up: Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson, hitting .571 on balls in play this year against fastballs 98 mph and up. His at-bat went fast: Took a splinker for strike one. Couldn’t catch up with a four-seamer at 98.9. Then dribbled another splinker in front of the mound, and Skenes threw him out.
“Fun matchup,” Henderson said. “He threw me that first pitch, that little splitter or whatever you call it, then the heater. And that first heater got on me. But once I saw the first one, then yeah, I was good to go.”
So I asked him, too, if that was a triumph, not to strike out.
“I mean, yeah,” Henderson said. “He’s got electric stuff, so yeah.”
SOTO ASKS TO SEE THE JUDGE. Then it was Juan Soto’s turn. It was vintage Soto — but also vintage Skenes … until the final pitch. Soto took his worst hack of the night and missed a first-pitch splinker, then worked the count back to 2-and-1 as only he can. But then he missed a furious hack at another splinker. So it was 2-and-2.
That’s where this got good. Soto then saw Skenes’ two hardest pitches of the night, wrapped around a curveball for ball three. Soto fouled off 100.1 mph to stay alive, then took one, at 100 mph, for ball four — and stared right at Judge in the on-deck circle to let him know: Hey, I got you an at-bat against this guy.
“Definitely trying to take him deep,” Soto said, chuckling. “Until strike two. Then at two strikes, I was trying to work the at-bat” — he looked over at Judge again, this time as they stood side by side after the game — “because I wanted to make sure he faced him too. So I got my job done.”
THERE GOES THE JUDGE. So up stomped Judge, with Soto on first and two outs. An audible buzz rippled through Globe Life Field. This was a moment everyone in the stadium had hoped would arrive.
It lasted exactly one pitch.
Skenes reached back for a 99.7 mph flameball. Judge was ready … but bounced it right at NL third baseman Alec Bohm. And that was that — for Judge, for the first inning and for the Paul Skenes Show we’d waited all week for.
But Judge said he’d done exactly what he’d geared up to do against Skenes — be aggressive.
“You’ve got to be with a guy like that,” Judge said, “who can just run it up to 100 (mph), plus his feel for all his pitches. Like Juan said, he did his job. He said he was gonna get on for me, and he did. It was my job to try to throw something up. (That isn’t what happened) but that was fun. It was a fun first inning.”
SO WERE OUR EXPECTATIONS TOO HIGH? Heck, yeah. Of course, they were. Did you know that only once all season has Skenes struck out the side in the first inning? That was May 17 against the Cubs, in the second start of his career.
And did you know that only two starting pitchers in history have ever struck out all three hitters they faced in the first inning of an All-Star Game? They were Pedro Martinez, in his legendary 1999 start at Fenway Park, and (who else?) Brad Penny, in 2006.
But Skenes did throw five of his seven four-seam fastballs at 99.6 miles per hour or harder. And his two heaters that hit triple digits made him only the third starter in the pitch-tracking era to reach 100 twice in the first inning of an All-Star Game. The others, according to MLB.com’s incredible research queen, Sarah Langs: Chris Sale in 2018 and Justin Verlander in 2012.
Whether it lived up to the hype we showered on it is a question that isn’t even worth dissecting, though, because this was special. This was history. And this was the beginning of a journey — of a rookie pitcher who knew he’d just lived through the experience of a lifetime.
Asked what he’d remember from these last couple of days, Skenes took a moment to think it over.
“I don’t know,” he said, finally. “Probably the first pitch. Just, like, being out there. I don’t think I blacked out when I was out there, but I was pretty close. It was cool to be on that mound.”
And it was cool to see how four of the best hitters in baseball geared up to rise to the level of a pitcher they’d never seen but still seemed to sense was bound for greatness.
Bonus Paul Skenes note of the day
Before we move on, I got to thinking about Skenes — and just how rare this was. Until he showed up, no pitcher or player had ever started an All-Star Game at any position a year after being drafted. But just so you understand, that’s strictly a baseball thing.
It’s certainly not an NBA thing. I asked our friends from STATS Perform to answer this fun little question: How many players have ever started an NBA All-Star Game a year after being drafted? I expected a list 40 or 50 players long. Nope. It was “only” 16. But the names are so fun, you need to see them all:
Yao Ming, 2003
Grant Hill, 1995
Shaquille O’Neal, 1993
Michael Jordan, 1986
Isiah Thomas, 1982
Magic Johnson, 1980
Spencer Haywood, 1972
Elvin Hayes, 1969
Rick Barry, 1966
Luke Jackson, 1965
Walt Bellamy, 1962
Oscar Robertson, 1961
Wilt Chamberlain, 1960
Elgin Baylor, 1959
Ray Felix, 1954
Bob Cousy, 1951
You’ll find a lot of Hall of Famers on that list. Is that telling us something about where Paul Skenes is headed? Um, get back to us in 20 years on that!
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The Shoh just goes on
Oops, he did it again. (Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)
It was another one of Those Nights in the life of Shohei Ohtani. He worked a first-inning walk against American League starting pitcher Corbin Burnes. Then, in the third inning he did this:
SHOHEI OHTANI #ALLSTARGAME HOMER! pic.twitter.com/Q8QF8nuEbu
— MLB (@MLB) July 17, 2024
That’s what a tie-breaking three-run All-Star Game homer looks like. And if you don’t count Home Run Derbies, Ohtani had never hit a long ball like this before.
But here’s the truth: Nobody had ever hit a home run like that before.
The note you heard everywhere was this: It made Ohtani the first player in history to own an All-Star Game home run as a hitter and an All-Star Game win as a pitcher in his career. Yeah, that’s cool. But …
Here’s an even crazier note you’ll get only from the All-Star edition of the Weird and Wild column:
Only one player in history has ever hit an All-Star Game home run and even thrown a single pitch in an All-Star Game. Guess who:
Right. Shohei Ohtani.
“He’s gonna do a lot of firsts — for a long time,” said his Dodgers teammate Freddie Freeman. “He’s just one of those players that, long after we’re not here, everyone’s going to be talking about him. It’s one of those special things — like we get to watch him. You get to cover him. I get to play with him. It’s really cool.
“It’s just incredible,” Freeman went on. “And on the biggest stages, it seems like he comes through every time. It’s the same thing — every year. He does something amazing. You think you’ve seen it all. Then he does something else. He’s an incredible player. He’s pretty much alone in the game of baseball. He’s playing in a baseball game. He’s playing on a baseball field. But he’s well above all of us. I know that.”
SHOHEI OHTANI FUN FACT: He just hit a three-run home run in an All-Star Game. Back in his other life, he leads his league in homers (with 29). But how many three-run homers (or slams) has he hit all year in this regular season? None. Of course. He saves those for nights like this.
The 3-4 hitters team up
Juan Soto doubles in the third inning with Aaron Judge watching from the on-deck circle. (Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)
Hitting third and fourth Tuesday for the National League All-Stars: Trea Turner and Bryce Harper. Sound familiar? They both play for the Phillies.
Hitting third and fourth for the American League All-Stars: Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Ring a bell? They both play for the Yankees.
So naturally, several of you loyal readers needed to know this: When was the last time both leagues started 3-4 hitters from the same team? Before I could even launch into that research, Greg Harvey from STATS beat me to it. And the answer was … all the way back in 1962!
For the record, that was the first All-Star Game of 1962, since they used to play two of them a year back then. We’re not getting into why that was. Just being accurate. But now back to the important part: Who were the 3-4 hitters back in ’62? Oh, you might have heard of them.
Hitting third and fourth for the AL back then: Two guys named Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. They played for the Yankees.
Hitting third and fourth for the NL back then: Two legends named Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda. They played for the Giants in those days. And sadly, they both just passed away, within a little more than a week of each other.
But in that 1962 game, those four icons combined for zero hits. Whereas in this game, those starting No. 3-4 hitters combined for three hits — with everybody getting one except Judge.
FUN FACT NO. 1 — Would you believe that, according to YES Network’s James Smyth, this was the 12th time the 3-4 hitters for the AL in an All-Star Game were Yankees? That’s a fact, dating back to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1933-34.
FUN FACT NO. 2 — On the other hand, would you believe that this was the first time Phillies hitters had ever batted 3-4 in an All-Star Game? Also true, but there’s a good reason for that. Trea Turner was the first Phillie to start in the No. 3 hole for the NL since … Chuck Klein. In 1933, the first All-Star Game ever played. Big Chuck got a single off General Crowder, who, we presume, was immediately demoted to Private.
When I passed that little tidbit on to Turner, he looked at me funny and said: “I can’t believe that,” mostly because he can’t believe he actually batted third in an All-Star Game.
“Look, I feel like I’m hitting the ball well and all that,” he said. “But I mean, it’s just kind of funny. You’ve got Shohei, and Bryce, and all these dudes here. And I hit third? I guess I’ve got to rethink my thought process.”
More useless All-Star Game information
First-time All-Star Jarren Duran took home MVP honors. (Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)
DURAN DURAN — Jarren Duran didn’t just hit a game-winning home run in Tuesday night. He also added his name to a really fun list — of Red Sox who have hit a go-ahead homer in an All-Star Game in the fifth inning or later:
• Ted Williams off Claude Passeau, 1941 (9th)
• Fred Lynn off Bob Welch, 1980 (5th)
• Jarren Duran off Hunter Greene, 2024 (5th)
THE GREENE ROOM — But before Hunter Greene met up with Duran, he had a much more fun encounter … with the Tigers’ Riley Greene.
And what was so cool about that one? It was the first All-Star plate appearance — for both of them.
Loyal reader Mike Novak immediately asked if that was a first. I ran this by my friends from STATS, and that answer is … of course it’s a first. It’s the first time in history that two players with the same last name (and same spelling) have ever hooked up for a batter-pitcher matchup that was the All-Star debut for both of them. So for these guys, that All-Star grass will never be greener — or Greener.
The Phillies were well-represented with Matt Strahm and company. (Tim Heitman / USA Today)
IT’S A PHILLY THING — I’m not sure we’ve totally comprehended how wild it is that the Phillies had eight All-Stars.
For one thing, they had eight All-Stars — and none of them were All-Stars last year!
For another thing, they had eight All-Stars — and none of them were named Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto, Nick Castellanos or Aaron Nola, four guys whose average salary this year is over $22 million.
Or how about this: They had three starting position players (Harper, Turner and Bohm) … but still had more All-Star pitchers than position players. That’s a first.
And one more thing: They had two All-Star relievers (Matt Strahm and Jeff Hoffman) — but neither of them was their primary closer. (José Alvarado leads the team in saves.) Only one other bullpen in history could make that claim — the 2001 Yankees team that sent set-up studs Mike Stanton and Jeff Nelson to the All-Star Game.
“You know what?” Strahm said, when I laid that nugget on him. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of this.”
TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING ALL-STAR FUN — Whoa. They played an All-Star Game in less than two and a half hours! Time of game: 2 hours, 28 minutes. It was the first All-Star Game played in under 2:30 in nearly 40 years — since a 2:26 game in 1988.
ALL A’S — Finally, who was the winning pitcher in this game? It was A’s rookie Mason Miller. But what’s so Weird and Wild about that? As my teammate, Tyler Kepner, observed so perfectly, that means Miller will be The Last Oakland A’s Pitcher Ever to Win an All-Star Game … since the team is leaving town (for Sacramento) between now and the next All-Star Game.
So of course I had to look through the list of every winning All-Star pitcher in history to see if any other team had produced the winning pitcher in an All-Star Game in its final season before calling the moving vans. Want to guess how many other teams can say that?
Right you are. That would be none. Until Mason Miller left his mark on Oakland forever.
Mason Miller, the final All-Star selection in Oakland A’s history, is officially the winning pitcher in the 2024 #AllStarGame.
If this really is the end for the Oakland A’s, no better way to honor them than with Mason Miller’s utter dominance. #Athletics pic.twitter.com/imMMzPNM0D
— Uprooted (@uprootedoakland) July 17, 2024
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(Top photo of Paul Skenes: Mary DeCicco / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
