There are five Orioles on the AL roster, which is still pretty cool.
Do you find any excitement in the idea or the reality of the All-Star Game?
One of my most boomer takes is that the game has lost something ever since the addition of interleague play into the regular season schedule. The trend was ongoing for a long time, because the leagues were even more separate back in the days before free agency, when there was much less player movement across the leagues. I wasn’t alive for that.
I am old enough to have grown up where National League players were some mysterious other, seen only on baseball cards and if you combed through the box scores in the sports section of the newspaper. There was no easy access to watching their games. You only got the highlights if you watched SportsCenter. Seeing the National League All-Stars was really the only chance to see them in action.
There’s new magic now: You can see any player and team (subject to blackout rules) and social media will give you just about every highlight in the palm of your hand. But something of the old magic has been lost. Or maybe I’m just old now and the wonder would always fade. It’s not like if interleague play suddenly ended next year, that all of the other stuff would go back to how it was 30 years ago. I don’t think I’ve watched SportsCenter once as an adult.
Although every team plays every team now, there will still be some Orioles matchups we haven’t seen before – or one, anyway. NL starter Paul Skenes has not faced the Orioles. Pittsburgh hadn’t called him up yet back when the teams played early in the season. Gunnar Henderson, at least, will get to face Skenes. He probably won’t still be in the game by the time Adley Rutschman bats, to say nothing of any of the reserves.
It’s still cool as a symbolic event with a celebration of quality players. The fact that five players on my favorite team were deemed worthy through the process this year is cool! It was not so long ago that there were five straight years with just the minimum one player.
It would be more fun if the Orioles hadn’t gone into the break seeming like they were barely running on fumes, such that many of us (including me) have pinned hopes on the idea of their getting this rest in. The All-Stars are getting a lighter load than they would have done if this was a regular game, and they get to have off tomorrow and Thursday anyway. So hopefully that’s enough.
The game will air on Fox at 8pm Eastern. If you want to see the player introductions, you’ll want to tune in to whatever content they have on in the 30 minutes before that.
American League starting lineup
- Steven Kwan (CLE) – LF
- Gunnar Henderson (BAL) – SS
- Juan Soto (NYY) – RF
- Aaron Judge (NYY) – CF
- Yordan Alvarez (HOU) – DH
- José Ramírez (CLE) – 3B
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (TOR) – 1B
- Adley Rutschman (BAL) – C
- Marcus Semien (TEX) – 2B
With Corbin Burnes as the starting pitcher, that’s three Orioles who will be in the game at the beginning. Burnes is the first Oriole to start the game since 1980. I wasn’t alive then! That’s cool too. Hopefully reserves Anthony Santander and Jordan Westburg get a chance to play later in the game, although I’m sure they’re just enjoying soaking up the experience of a first career All-Star bid.
National League starting lineup
- Ketel Marte (ARI) – 2B
- Shohei Ohtani (LAD) – DH
- Trea Turner (PHI) – SS
- Bryce Harper (PHI) – 1B
- William Contreras (MIL) – C
- Christian Yelich (MIL) – RF
- Alec Bohm (PHI) – 3B
- Teoscar Hernández (LAD) – CF
- Jurickson Profar (SD) – LF
Roughly one year ago, Skenes was the #1 draft pick and now he’s the All-Star Game starting pitcher for the NL. It’s really something. Since the Pirates didn’t have him up to start out the year, he’s only made 11 starts, but he’s averaging just above 6 innings per start. He’s dominating everyone. I’m glad that’s going to be the Orioles problem for at most one regular season game per year.