Jarren Duran named All-Star Game MVP after HR fuels AL win

On a night when Paul Skenes, baseball’s pitching phenom, toed the rubber for a historic All-Star Game start, and Shohei Ohtani, the sport’s brightest star, demolished a home run for the National League, it was a former top prospect enjoying a breakout season who stole the show at the 2024 All-Star Game on Tuesday.

Boston Red Sox center fielder Jarren Duran completed the American League’s comeback 5-3 triumph at Globe Life Field with a two-run homer off Cincinnati Reds fireballer Hunter Greene.

With the blast, the first by a Red Sox player at an All-Star Game since Adrian Gonzalez in 2011, Duran became the fifth player in franchise history to be named the game’s MVP and the first since J.D. Drew in 2008.

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Duran, 27, helped erase a deficit created when Ohtani smashed a 400-foot, three-run home run against Red Sox right-hander Tanner Houck to open the scoring in the third inning.

It was the Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter’s first career All-Star Game home run and second by a Dodgers player since Mike Piazza in 1996. Ichiro Suzuki’s inside-the-park home run in 2007 had been the only home run by a Japanese-born player in All-Star Game history.

Those three runs were the only runs the National League scored in what ended up being the shortest All-Star Game — at 2 hours, 28 minutes — since 1988.

The game started with some drama.

Juan Soto’s exceptional skill, the trait that has placed him on a path to first-ballot Hall of Fame status, is an uncanny ability to reach base. Never has the baseball universe, in unison, wanted to see the New York Yankees right fielder get that job done more than in the first inning Tuesday.

The pressure started to mount Monday when American League All-Star team manager Bruce Bochy announced a lineup that surprisingly had Yankees center fielder, and leading American League MVP candidate, Aaron Judge batting fourth.

That meant Judge was not guaranteed to face the phenom Skenes, who was slated for a strict one-inning limit after just 11 career big league starts. Somebody had to get on base for the American League. When Skenes retired the American League’s first two batters, that somebody had to be Soto, or the matchup everyone wanted to see wasn’t happening.

Soto, in Soto fashion, accomplished his task by working a seven-pitch walk to appease the masses. The drama, however, was fleeting: Judge swung at the first pitch from Skenes, a 100 mph fastball, and grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the inning.

“I was trying to take him deep, bro,” Soto said. “But after two strikes I was trying to work the at-bat because I wanted to make sure he faced him, too, so I got my job done.”

Skenes, 22, failed to record a strikeout, but he threw five of his 16 pitches at least 100 mph, induced four whiffs — all on his nasty sprinkler — and silenced any remaining critics who believed he didn’t deserve to start the game after just 11 starts.

Skenes, one of 37 first-time All-Stars, was the first rookie to start the All-Star Game since Hideo Nomo also started for the National League at the ballpark across the street in 1995.

Two innings after his exit, Soto came through in a different way for the American League, slashing a ground ball up the middle that he converted into a two-run hustle double thanks to a lackadaisical Teoscar Hernandez in center field to cut the National League’s lead to one run.

Two batters later, David Fry, pinch hitting for Globe Life Field adversary Yordan Alvarez, scored Soto from second base with a game-tying RBI single to left field.

Duran finished off the come-from-behind win — the American League’s 10th triumph in the past 11 All-Star Games — by blasting a fat splitter over the plate from Greene 413 feet over the wall in right-center field.

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