The 2022 Major League Baseball All-Star Week took place this week at Dodger Stadium. The festivities included the draft, home run derby, and the main game.
As usual, the American League took on the National League in an epic battle with the game brightest on showcase. It was a fun week for baseball fans to get to see the best of the best. Here are some takeaways from the game and home run derby.
MLB All-Star Week Home Run Derby
The 2022 T-Mobile Home Run Derby took place this week as eight players went head-to-head to see who could hit the most home runs. On Monday night the stars of the game came out to crush balls out of Dodger Stadium. The main takeaway is that the future is bright for baseball and there are some young stars coming. Also, home runs are exciting to watch especially with all the stat cast technology.
Juan Soto is the 2022 Home Run Derby Champion after dueling with Mariners rookie Julio Rodriquez in the battle of the young stars. Soto becomes just the second youngest player to win, and he is only getting started. Though the Nationals phenom took home the crown there were plenty of surprises. Such as Rodriquez eliminating back-to-back reigning champ Pete Alonso in the second round or Albert Pujols upsetting Kyle Schwarber in the first round.
All-Star Game Takeways
The American League continued its dominance behind back-to-back home runs by Giancarlo Stanton and Byron Buxton. Therefore the AL won the 2022 MLB All-Star Game 3-2 to make it nine consecutive victories against the National League. Also, Stanton was named the All-Star Game MVP after hitting a massive 457-foot homer off Dodger righty Tony Gonsolin in the fourth inning. Then Buxton followed with a 425-foot homer of his own which was the game-winner.
As for the National League, the night started off promising with good pitching in the first inning by Clayton Kershaw. In the bottom of the inning, NL got two runs off a Mookie Betts RBI single and Paul Goldschmidt home run. Though it was not enough as the AL came back with their own big runs and excellent pitching.
The All-Star Game showcased some big stars of the game and was fun to watch. It was cool how they had microphones on some of the players and fans got to hear some of their insight. There were a lot of fun moments this year. It will be interesting to see what happens next for MLB.
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