The regrettably Oriole-light 2026 edition of MLB’s All-Star Game gets under way at 8pm tonight, or however long after 8pm that it takes to do all of the pre-game activities – player introductions and all of that – that MLB doesn’t schedule before 8pm. You can watch the game on Fox and that’s it.
Adley Rutschman is among the American League reserves. It’s nice for him that he’s back in the game for the third time. Probably it was more fun a couple of years ago when he had several teammates there with
him. His revival after a couple of down years has been important for the Orioles holding on to what they can so far this season and it is going to be significant for next year as well. He will probably catch two or three innings and get one or two at-bats tonight. Enjoy it while it lasts.
American League starting lineup
- Mike Trout – CF
- Yordan Álvarez – DH
- Shea Langeliers – C
- Junior Caminero – 3B
- Bobby Witt Jr. – SS
- Cody Bellinger – RF
- Ben Rice – 1B
- Riley Greene – LF
- Ernie Clement – 2B
Dylan Cease is the AL starting pitcher.
As a general rule, I don’t go in for “oh, what a nice story for baseball” narratives. I don’t care about nice stories for baseball. I want the Orioles to win games and Orioles players to play well and that’s it. Anybody else has other people to cheer for them and enjoy them. It won’t be me.
That said, even my cold heart can be swayed by Trout being back in the All-Star Game after an absence of a couple of years. His return to relative good health and pretty good performance this year is one of the better random things going on in baseball. In classic Angels form for the duration of his career, it’s coming for a team that is bad and going nowhere. It’s a real shame. Trout getting some late-career postseason success probably would be nice for baseball. I might even enjoy it, as long as it doesn’t come against the Orioles.
National League starting lineup
- Kyle Schwarber – DH
- Juan Soto – RF
- Freddie Freeman – 1B
- CJ Abrams – SS
- Max Muncy – 3B
- Ozzie Albies – 2B
- Brandon Marsh – LF
- Andy Pages – CF
- Drake Baldwin – C
Cristopher Sánchez of the Phillies will start the game for the NL team.
One thing that always mildly interests me with All-Star starting lineups is thinking about how many of these guys are future Hall of Fame guys. Will we look back at this group of guys and think, wow, the fans really nailed it this time?
For the American League, there’s Trout, obviously. Much to my chagrin, Witt looks like a good pick with 26.8 bWAR through his first 4.5 seasons of his career. If Álvarez’s next five years look like his last five years, he could make it. At least for now, that looks like it for this lineup. Aaron Judge, who was elected as a starter but is not going to play, is going to make it some day. I have no joy in saying this.
Among the NL starters, Schwarber looks like a decent bet to hit the 500 home run club that’s the standard for any players who weren’t either caught using or widely believed to have used PEDs. Soto, with 45.4 bWAR and he’s still only in his age 27 season, couldn’t walk into the Hall if he retired tomorrow (for one thing, he hasn’t played the minimum ten seasons) but he probably could after about three more seasons that look like his career averages. Freeman will end up in Cooperstown. The elected starting NL DH, Shohei Ohtani, is also obviously heading there.
If you’re wondering how this compares to last year, I think last year’s elected AL starters had two definitely future HOFers: Judge and José Ramírez. The NL had Freeman, Ohtani, Manny Machado, and Francisco Lindor. Younger guys like Ronald Acuña Jr. and Pete Crow-Armstrong were also in that mix. So, this year’s is maybe about normal or maybe a little bit less on future HOF power than normal.
It does not matter who wins or loses this game.
