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A year ago in the DTBL All-Star Game, the National Division staged an incredible comeback to defeat the American Division. They scored seven runs in the 7th and 8th innings to win by a score of 8-7. The game winning hit was a home run off of Aroldis Chapman. Sometimes history does repeat itself. In the 26th Annual DTBL All-Star Game, played for the first time at The Dragon Den, home of Kat’s Komodos, Christian Yelich launched a grand slam off of Chapman in the top of the seventh to give the National All-Stars their first lead of the game. They would hold on to defeat the American team by a final of 5-4, collecting their fourth straight victory in the mid-summer classic.
Just like a year ago, the game got off to a great start for the American Division. Hyun-Jin Ryu got the start and survived a couple of singles to pitch a scoreless top of the first. In the bottom of the first, National starter Max Scherzer was uncharacteristically knocked around. The first three hitters he faced all recorded hits, highlighted by a run scoring double by Rafael Devers. The damage could have been worse had Willson Contreras not picked off Cody Bellinger at first. But the Americans had an early one run lead. It didn’t last long, however, as Trevor Story tied the game with a solo home run leading off the second. Scherzer continued to struggle in the bottom half, surrendering a mammoth, opposite-field 464 foot bomb by Eddie Rosario. Scherzer’s Kings teammate Justin Verlander struggled in the third inning as well. He gave up a two run homer to Nolan Arenado to stake the American squad to a 4-1 lead after three innings.
After the third, things started to settle down and return to usual DTBL All-Star Game mode of an inordinate number of strikeouts. In the fourth inning, all six batters who stepped up to the plate were retired on strikeouts. Gerrit Cole for the American Division and Jacob deGrom for the National both struck out the side. Neither team really mounted much of a scoring chance in any of the middle innings. It remained 4-1 heading into the seventh inning, when everything changed.
Kirby Yates started the seventh inning on the mound for the American side. He had major trouble finding the strike zone, loading the bases on three walks while also striking out a pair of hitters. The third walk was to Mike Trout, bringing Christian Yelich to the plate with the bags full and two outs. The American All-Stars then turned to Aroldis Chapman to set up a lefty vs. lefty matchup in the games biggest moment. Unfortunately for them, playing the matchup didn’t pan out. Yelich greeted Chapman with a first pitch opposite field bomb to left to clear the bases, giving the National All-Stars a 5-4 lead.
After that, pitchers resumed their domination of hitters on both sides. The National Division sent lefty Brad Hand to the mound to start the bottom of the ninth. He retired the first two hitters he faced, but then surrendered a single to Cody Bellinger giving the American squad some life. Kenley Jansen was then called upon to get the final out. Sure enough, he struck out Anthony Rendon to lock up the 5-4 victory for the National All-Stars. In keeping with the theme of repeating last year’s game, Jansen also closed out that National win.
Will Smith picked up the win for the National team, having pitched an inefficient, but effective scoreless bottom of the sixth. Chapman was tagged with a blown save and a loss for the second straight year. And as just mentioned, this was the second consecutive save in an All-Star Game for Jansen. Christian Yelich was the clear recipient of the game’s Most Valuable Player award. The Darkhorses outfielder had a pair of hits, including the game deciding grand slam, walked once and drove in 80% of the National runs. It is the third time in this four game winning streak by the National Division that the MVP has been won by a member of the Darkhorses, with Xander Bogaerts and Bryce Harper also earning this honor in recent years.
Continuing the recent trend of a plethora of strikeouts in DTBL All-Star Games, there were 26 in this ballgame. The National pitchers struck out 11, while the American hurlers recorded 15 K’s. DeGrom, Cole and Roberto Osuna all struck out the side in their innings of work. Besides Yelich, some of the other offensive standouts included Charlie Blackmon with a pair of hits for the National team and Cody Bellinger who had a game high three hits for the American side. Arenado probably would have been in line for the MVP award had the American Division held the lead as he recorded a home run and a double. One other notable performance was Javy Baez who took the golden sombrero, striking out in all four of his plate appearances.
The four straight victories by the National Division is a new DTBL All-Star Game record for consecutive wins by a team. They have extended their overall lead to 15-11. Click here to see the box score from the 2019 DTBL All-Star Game.