ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Kyle Schwarber was nervous.<\/p>\n
He had played in Game 7 of the World Series, homered for the United States in the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n
But he had never walked up to the plate in an All-Star Game swing-off.<\/p>\n
No one had.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s kind of like the baseball version of a shootout,\u201d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Schwarber earned the MVP award, going 0 for 2 with a walk as the NL won for the second time in its last 12 tries. He became the first non-pitcher MVP without a hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be interesting to see where that goes,\u201d said AL manager Aaron Boone of the New York Yankees. \u201cThere\u2019s probably a world where you could see that in the future, where maybe it\u2019s in some regular season mix. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if people start talking about it like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Concerned about running out of pitchers in an era where no All-Star throws more than one inning, Major League Baseball and the players\u2019 association made the change in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n In baseball\u2019s equivalent of soccer\u2019s penalty-kicks shootout, the game was decided by having three batters from each league take three swings each off coaches.<\/p>\n Boone picked Brent Rooker, Randy Arozarena and Aranda on Monday, and Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts picked Eugenio Su\u00e1rez, Schwarber and Pete Alonso for the NL. Because Su\u00e1rez was hit<\/a> on the left hand by a fastball in the eighth inning, the NL turned to its alternate, Kyle Stowers.<\/p>\n Players from both teams stood outside their dugouts, some already in street clothes, jumping and shouting after each long ball from their side. Yankees coach Travis Chapman threw to the AL batters and Dodgers coach Dino Ebel to the NL hitters.<\/p>\n Rooker put the AL ahead by homering on his last two swings, and Stowers hit one. Randy Arozarena boosted the AL lead to 3-1. <\/p>\n Ebel had thrown BP to Schwarber two years ago at the WBC.<\/p>\n \u201cHe asked me right before, he was like, where do you want it?\u201d Schwarber recalled \u201cI\u2019m like, just middle. And he\u2019s like, `I gotcha.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He took two pitches and deposited the third just over the center-field fence. Schwarber took another, then hit a 461-foot drive over the right-center bullpen. After letting two more go by, he dropped to a knee while pulling the third, craned his neck and held his bat it the air as the ball landed in the fourth row of the Chop House seats.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t hit it, obviously, my best, but I was thinking I got enough of it,\u201d Schwarber said. \u201cAnd I was just kind of down there, hoping, saying: go, go, go. And it went. And it was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n Aranda followed with a fly well short of the center-field warning track, drove a pitch about a foot shy of the top of the right-field wall and hit an opposite-field pop that dropped in medium left.<\/p>\n Alonso, a two-time Home Run Derby champion, didn\u2019t have to bat and patted Schwarber on the head as fireworks went off at Truist Field.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like a closer like a closer going into a game,\u201d Alonso said, \u201cand then it\u2019s like, wait, the guy in the field got a double play to end the inning. You\u2019re not going in.\u201d<\/p>\n What was the score?<\/p>\n MLB, after consulting with the Elias Sports Bureau, said in 2022<\/a> 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\u2019s official postgame notes listed Tuesday\u2019s outcome as a 7-6 NL victory.<\/p>\n In earlier action<\/p>\n Ketel Marte\u2019s two-run double in the first had put the NL ahead, and Alonso\u2019s three-run homer off Kris Bubic and Corbin Carroll\u2019s solo shot against Casey Mize opened a 6-0 lead in the sixth.<\/p>\n The AL comeback began when Rooker hit a three-run pinch homer against Randy Rodr\u00edguez in a four-run seventh that included Bobby Witt Jr.\u2019s RBI groundout. Robert Suarez allowed consecutive doubles to Byron Buxton and Witt with one out in ninth, and Steven Kwan\u2019s infield hit on a three-hopper to third off Edwin D\u00edaz drove in the tying run.<\/p>\n Heat on the mound<\/p>\n 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<\/a> 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. There were 21 pitches of 100 mph or more, down from a record 23 last year.<\/p>\n Robot umpire debuts<\/p>\n Four of five challenges were successful in the first use of the robot umpire in the All-Star Game<\/p>\n Styling<\/p>\n