Baseball’s best players (even some that don’t play for the Cubs) will descend on San Diego’s Petco Park for the 2016 Major League All-Star Game. This year, the key names were baseball Royalty: Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez. But pitcher Will Harris of the Houston Astros came up clutch and struck Diaz out.
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“I was supposed to hit a home run in my second at-bat”. And, it was the first time since Boston Red Sox teammates Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz did it in 2004. He was especially hot in May, helping carry the Cubs through slumps by Jason Heyward and Miguel Montero and helping the offense to some of the best numbers in the game.
Bryant added some more color to the All-Star Game in a more literal fashion as well: He changed his cleats three times in four innings, showing off a different shade of shoe each time. This way, the team that has the home-field advantage has actually earned it by having the best season of the two teams still standing.
The most buzzworthy moment of the night actually happened well before the game, when Juno-based group The Tenors performed “O Canada” and one of the members chose to alter the song’s lyrics to say “All Lives Matter”, which has emerged as a counter-hashtag to “Black Lives Matter”. “Maybe it’s all the sun in San Diego”. The NL’s scoring lead is just 360-359. Not to bad for a first time All-Star player. That served Cueto well last fall, when he pitched a two-hitter for host Kansas City in Game 2 for a 2-0 lead of New York Mets, who never recovered.
Two of the brightest young infielders in the majors, Jose Altuve (left) and Manny Machado (right) talk before the All-Star game Tuesday.
The win, the fourth in a row for the junior circuit, secures home-field advantage for an American League club in this year’s World Series. The Cleveland Indians’ Corey Kluber got the win, Cueto got the loss, Britton delivered the save, and the AL won its fourth straight All-Star Game.
Bryant was part of an all-Cubs infield – the first starting infield quartet from a single team since the 1963 St. Louis Cardinals.
Not surprisingly, Hosmer took home the MVP honors, breaking Trout’s streak at two. I’ve got to quit doing that.
Royals teammates Hosmer and Perez homered, becoming the first pair of teammates to homer in the Mid Summer Classic since (oddly enough) Ortiz and Manny Ramirez each went deep in 2004.
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Other San Diegans on the rosters are former University of San Diego slugger Kris Bryant of the Chicago Cubs, who will bat third for the NL and play third base; Texas Rangers pitcher Cole Hamels, who played at Rancho Bernardo High School; and Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg, a Santee native who played his college ball at San Diego State. He had a smash-hit single past third base the next time up to put the AL up 4-1.
