2024 MLB All-Star Game in the Books
After losing for the first time in ten years in last year’s Midsummer Classic, the American League returned to its winning ways in Arlington last night, defeating the National League 5-3. Starting for the NL, rookie pitcher Paul Skenes took the spotlight early, throwing a shutout inning. The game remained scoreless until Shohei Ohtani, playing in his first All-Star game as a member of the National League, crushed a three-run bomb off Tanner Houck of the Boston Red Sox. The lead did not last the inning. In the bottom of the frame, the AL tied things up with a two-run double from Juan Soto, followed by a two-out RBI single off the bat of David Fry.
The game turned for good in the bottom of the fifth. In his first-ever All-Star at-bat, Boston’s Jarren Duran launched a two-run homer to right-center off Hunter Greene of the Cincinnati Reds. Despite failing to record another hit the rest of the way, the AL held on. The NL put two runners on base in the seventh but couldn’t cash them in.
Duran won the Ted Williams MVP Award, joining J.D. Drew as the only Boston Red Sox to win the award since it was named after the Red Sox legend in 2002. “He just gave me a pitch to put a good swing on. That’s probably the first pitch I’ve ever pimped in my life; I was trying to soak it all in. It was a surreal moment.”
