All-Star finalists revealed tonight

The Lineup: Pregame Edition

Thursday, June 25

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KONAMI eBaseball MLB All-Star Ballot

Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today’s edition is brought to you by David Adler.

The All-Star finalists will be revealed tonight. Here’s everything you need to know. 

The first phase of All-Star Game voting is now over. The results will be announced at 6 p.m. ET on MLB Network, with live coverage starting at 5 p.m. ET. 

What’s at stake? 

There are two big things: 

1) The top overall vote-getter in each league clinches an automatic starting spot in the 2026 All-Star Game on July 14 in Philadelphia.  

As of the latest ballot update, the National League leader was Shohei Ohtani (no surprise there), and the American League leader was Blue Jays second baseman Ernie Clement (big surprise there). 

2) To determine who else is starting the All-Star Game, the top two players at every position, and the top six outfielders, advance to Phase 2 of the voting.

The winners of those head-to-head runoffs (and the top three outfielders in each league) are the All-Star starters.

How does the next phase of voting work?

Voting for Phase 2 begins at noon ET on Monday. Fans have 72 hours to cast their ballots until voting ends at noon ET on Thursday. 

Vote totals from Phase 1 do not carry over. Every position race starts from scratch. 

Fans can vote once per day during Phase 2, with the daily voting limit resetting each day at midnight. Just like in Phase 1, the All-Star Ballot is available at MLB.com, on all 30 MLB club sites and on the MLB App.

The All-Star starters will be announced on Saturday, July 4, at 7:30 p.m. ET on FOX.

What are the closest Phase 1 races? 

Here are five close races to watch when the results are revealed tonight: 

  • NL first base — Bryce Harper is trying to catch Matt Olson for the second finalist spot, with both stars already over the 1 million vote mark as of the last ballot update.
  • NL second base — Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott holds a narrow lead over the Brewers’ Brice Turang to be the second finalist.
  • NL outfield — Mets star Juan Soto is just barely ahead of the Nationals’ James Wood for the sixth and final spot, with the Cardinals’ Jordan Walker also close behind.
  • AL second base — The Rangers’ Ezequiel Duran is trying to hold off the Astros’ Jose Altuve for the No. 2 spot.
  • AL outfield — Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Byron Buxton and Cody Bellinger hold a solid lead for the top four spots, but there are five outfielders fighting for the last two spots: Julio Rodríguez, Randy Arozarena, Daulton Varsho, Jesús Sánchez and Riley Greene.

See our full FAQ for tonight’s All-Star Game finalist reveal here >>  

 

A NEAR NO-NO AND MORE AT THE TROP

Rays pitcher Ian Seymour

Today’s Rays game was a wild one. 

First of all, the team that invented the “opener” nearly got a no-hitter out of one. The Rays came within two outs of a combined no-hitter in their 13-2 win over the Royals, a game that was started by reliever Casey Legumina. 

After Ian Seymour piggybacked on Legumina with 6 2/3 no-hit innings of his own, the no-hit bid was finally spoiled by Carter Jensen, who hit a home run off Craig Kimbrel in the ninth inning, extending his MLB-best hitting streak to 16 games in his final at-bat of the day. 

While all that was happening for the Rays on the mound, they were also getting fireworks at the plate from star slugger Junior Caminero. 

Caminero belted three home runs — his first career three-homer game — and capped off his day with an absolute moonshot off the Tropicana Field catwalks.  

All in all, a pretty good way to kick off the day of games.  

GAMES OF THE NIGHT

Two Cy Young contenders take the mound in the games to watch tonight.  

Phillies at Nationals (6:45 p.m. ET, MLB.TV)  

The Phillies have been down to their last strike two games in a row to the Nats, and they’ve come back to win both games. Now they’re looking for a third straight W behind ace Cristopher Sánchez, who’s in historic companyas the Phils’ season hits its halfway point.

Yankees at Red Sox (7:10 p.m. ET, MLB Network / MLB.TV)  

Can Cam Schlittler torment the rival Red Sox once again? The AL Cy Young favorite enters tonight’s series opener with a 0.83 ERA against Boston in three starts going back to last year’s Wild Card Series, and Schlittler is also coming off a career-high 13 strikeoutsagainst the Reds in his last outing. 

WHY PETERSON CAN IMPROVE WITH CUBS

David Peterson

The Cubs and Mets just pulled off the always fun “one dugout to the other” trade, with the Cubs acquiring lefty David Peterson in the middle of their series against the Mets at Citi Field. 

Chicago needs pitching depth amid a rash of injuries, and even though Peterson has struggled this season — he has a 6.09 ERA in 16 appearances (eight starts) — there are a few reasons to believe he can bounce back with his new team. 

Max Ralph explains why Peterson’s numbers could improve in Chicago, but we want to highlight the No. 1 reason here: the Cubs’ elite defense. 

See, Peterson is a ground-ball machine. He’s induced a 53% ground-ball rate this season, which ranks in the 89th percentile of MLB pitchers. The one thing Peterson does really well is get hitters to put the ball on the ground. But a ground-ball pitcher needs infielders behind him who can turn those ground balls into outs. 

And the Cubs? They just might have the best infield defense in the Majors, led by shortstop Dansby Swanson and second baseman Nico Hoerner. 

The Cubs infield leads MLB in Outs Above Average (+22), according to Statcast, and ranks second in overall Fielding Run Value(+19 runs prevented from infield defense, just behind the Cardinals).   

The Mets, on the other hand? They’ve been kind of a mess. The Mets’ infield is seventh worst in the league by Outs Above Average (-11) and sixth worst by Fielding Run Value (-11). Case in point: They just committed six infield errors in their Game 2 loss to the Cubs in yesterday’s doubleheader.

Peterson should get extra outs, and take some runs off his ERA, just by virtue of playing in front of the Cubs infielders. Read more here >> 

AROUND THE LEAGUE

Here are three highlights from yesterday’s games. 

• Mookie Betts reached a home run milestone with the 300th of his career — not the first “300” for the bowler extraordinaire — as the Dodgers completed a sweep of the Twins. Shohei Ohtani had a bounceback outing on the mound for L.A., even calling his own pitches.

• For whatever reason, Paul Goldschmidt has Tarik Skubal’s number. He mashed two home runs off the reigning Cy Young winner yesterday, and is 7-for-13 with four homers in his career against Skubal. So what’s his secret? “I have no idea,” Goldy said. 

• The Cubs still have one more game against the Mets, but Dansby Swanson has already made history with a whopping 15 RBIs through the first three games of the series. That’s the most RBIs by a player in one series in 10 years (Danny Espinosa had that many for the Nationals in a series vs. the Reds from June 30-July 3, 2016), and the most by any player in a series against the Mets. Dansby has left teammate Pete Crow-Armstrong in awe. 

BEAT THE STREAK

Beat the Streak

Can you Beat the Streak? Try to top Joe DiMaggio’s record hitting streak of 56 games by selecting a player each day to record a hit. If you get to 57, you can win $5.6 million. Plus, there’s a chance to win unique weekly prizes.

In the Cardinals’ game against the D-backs, Lars Nootbaar gets to face Zac Gallen, who he’s had strong numbers against. Nootbaar also has been raking against righties in general, and Gallen has been giving up a lot of hits. 

 

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Published by RJ Hamster

I was born on 6 August 1956 in San Francisco, California to Janet and (the late) Richard Hovis. I grew up in Santa Monica, California where I attended elementary, junior high school, and high school (graduating in 1974), in addition to involvement in sports and recreation (Little League +, the Boy’s Club ++). Further, it was in elementary school – St. Augustine’s By-the -Sea Parish School that I found, and made the choice to truly journey with God. I attended Arizona State University from 1974 to 1977 – seeking to become an architect, however, I was not accepted, and, as such, I graduated with a Liberal Arts degree. Upon graduation from Arizona State University, I attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and studied City and Regional Planning at the Master’s level. I successfully completed one (1) year in a two (2) year program – I did not complete the Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning – due to personal reasons. I returned to Santa Monica where I started (October 1979) my career as graphic designer with Exxon Company, USA. I spent five years with Exxon Company, USA. While working with Exxon Company, USA I was accepted into architectural school – Sci-Arc in Southern California, however, I did not attend preferring to stay with Exxon.. In 1982 I married Laura Flosi and in April 1983 we had our one and only child – Lauren Alain Hovis – a gift from God. We moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1984 from Los Angeles, where I went to work as a graphic designer with Kitchell CEM (from 1985 -1987). From 1987 – 1995 I was an independent contractor, and a registered representative in mortgage finance, financial management, graphic design, and drafting. Further, I attended the University of Phoenix and successfully obtained a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) in 1982. I was also a member of the Scottsdale Jaycees, where I became very involved in community events and projects. In 1994, I accepted a cartography position with the Defense Mapping Agency in Reston, Virginia. As such, I relocated from Phoenix to Reston. In 1998, I was accepted and worked as a Visual Information Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. In 2002, I worked as a Support Officer until my retirement (due to a need for shoulder surgery) in September 2018. Away from my Federal Government service, I have been involved in various organizations and activities in Northern Virginia. In November of 2011, I married Rebecca Ouellette in Santa Monica, California. I reside in San Tan Valley, AZ with my two hamster - Jess and Timothy, our fish, our lizard - RJ Lizard., and our cats - Pearl and Grey. As to hobbies, I enjoy playing sports, attending sporting events, mentoring individuals from financial management to hamsters, building models, photography, travel, multimedia design, managing partner for RJ Hamster, and jazz – smooth jazz to a samba or a bossa nova. Love and God Bless, Peter – aka RJ Hamster Jo hi

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