By now, Yankees and Mets fans are accustomed to seeing Aaron Judge and Pete Alonso at the MLB All-Star Game.
This is the fifth year in a row and seventh overall that Judge was named an All-Star, while Alonso is set to participate in the annual exhibition for a fourth consecutive season and the fifth time overall.
But there are fresh faces representing both clubs at Tuesday night’s All-Star Game at Truist Park in Atlanta, too.
The New York teams are sending four players apiece, with second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. and starting pitchers Max Fried and Carlos Rodón joining Judge for the Yankees; and shortstop Francisco Lindor, closer Edwin Diaz and starter David Peterson going with Alonso for the Mets.
That doubles last year’s total, when the Yankees and Mets combined for four All-Stars.
Here are the biggest All-Star storylines involving the Yankees and Mets.
TO THE MAX
A few days before the All-Star Game, Fried made a call to Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal.
Fried knew he and Skubal were in contention to start Tuesday night’s game, and he wanted to gauge his counterpart’s interest in doing it.
“It was just a very candid conversation of, ‘Hey, I know this is something that right now hasn’t been decided,’ but I [felt] like, from my end, if he wanted to start the game, he deserved to do it,” Fried said Sunday.
That helped pave the way for Skubal (10-3, 2.23 ERA, 153 strikeouts) to get the nod. American League manager Aaron Boone, who has input on the game’s starting pitcher, called Skubal shortly after Fried did to inform him he would be starting.
Skubal said he initially deferred to Fried (11-3, 2.43 ERA, 113 strikeouts), who spent his first eight seasons in Atlanta.
“To be able to let everyone know that I wasn’t going to be available if I wasn’t going to start, then, yeah, just to be able to do that and try to get ahead of it, [it was good] to give people the time to get their plans together,” Fried said.
Fried had decided already that he would sit out of the All-Star Game before he left Saturday’s start with a blister. He still plans to attend the game.
INCREDIBLE AARON
Even among All-Stars, Judge stands tall.
The 6-7 slugger’s incredible first half made him the All-Star Game’s leading vote-getter and will again make his at-bats must-see-TV.
Judge leads the majors in batting average (.355), on-base percentage (.462), slugging percentage (.733) and OPS (1.195), while his 35 home runs and 81 RBI rank second to Seattle’s Cal Raleigh.
Judge is set to bat third for the American League, setting up a first-inning matchup against flame-throwing Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Skenes won that showdown in last year’s game, getting Judge to ground into a first-inning force out.
Judge, who is batting directly in front of Raleigh, is the Yankees’ lone starter.
“Excited to head to Atlanta,” Judge said over the weekend. “They’ve got a lot of great guys going to the game.”
LONG-AWAITED LINDOR
For the first time as a Met, Lindor was named an All-Star.
The fans voted Lindor to be the National League’s starting shortstop, and he is set to bat eighth.
It’s the fifth All-Star selection for Lindor, but he had not made the game since 2019, when he still played for Cleveland.
Now in his fifth season with the Mets, the switch-hitting Lindor is batting .260 with 19 home runs, 54 RBI and 15 stolen bases.
Lindor is the Mets’ only starter.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Lindor said. “There’s a lot of good people in this organization, and to be able to represent them, I do that with a lot of pride and the utmost respect.”
FOR PETE’S SAKE
While Alonso, a reserve first baseman, will likely appear in Tuesday’s game, he declined MLB’s invitation to participate in the Home Run Derby for a sixth time.
Alonso, who won the derby in 2019 and 2021, had competed in it every year of his MLB career except for 2020, when the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’ve never really fully enjoyed the three off days, so I think for me, I just want to be in the best possible position to help this team win in the second half,” Alonso said. “Personally, I feel like I’m in a groove with certain things.”
Alonso, who can opt out of his contract after the season, is hitting .280 with 21 home runs, 77 RBI and a .908 OPS.
SOTO SNUB
Juan Soto ranks fourth in the majors in on-base percentage (.396), seventh in home runs (23) and 11th in OPS (.905), but that wasn’t enough to get the Mets slugger into the All-Star Game.
The surprise snub came in the first year of Soto’s record-setting 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets.
His offensive numbers are superior to those of NL reserve outfielders Fernando Tatis Jr., Corbin Carroll and Kyle Stowers, the latter of whom is the Miami Marlins’ lone representative. Every team is granted at least one All-Star.
The Mets had held out hope Soto would be added to the NL roster as a replacement.
“It’s a lot of money on the table if I make it,” Soto, who would have earned a $100,000 bonus, said last week.
“There’s a lot of players out there that have great numbers and deserve to be there,” Soto said. “But it’s a roster that they got filled, and it’s only 25 guys. They can’t all take all the guys.”
REDEMPTION STORIES
This is Rodón’s third All-Star selection, but the left-hander acknowledged that this year’s is particularly meaningful.
Rodón struggled with injury and inconsistency in the first year of his six-year, $162 million deal with the Yankees in 2023, then rebounded with a strong season (16-9, 3.96 ERA) last year.
But Rodón has been at a different level this year, going 10-6 with a 3.08 ERA in the first half. He was named Fried’s replacement on the AL roster.
“I wasn’t good when I first got here,” Rodón said Friday. “I wanted to prove that I wasn’t going to give up and just put my best foot forward and try to win as many games as I can.”
Diaz also overcame adversity. This is his third All-Star selection, but it is his first since he suffered a season-ending knee injury during the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
The flame-throwing right-hander boasts a 1.66 ERA and has converted 19 of his 20 save opportunities.
“It feels good,” Diaz said.
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