MLB All-Star Game: Start time, starting lineup and pitchers, how to watch and stream

MLB’s top players will take the field at T-Mobile Park in Seattle tonight for the 93rd annual All-Star Game, with the first pitch scheduled for just after 8 p.m. on Fox.

Two Phillies players made the trip to Seattle — outfielder Nick Castellanos and closer Craig Kimbrel, who was added to the National League roster last week as a replacement for Milwaukee Brewers reliever Devin Williams. Phillies manager Rob Thomson is managing the National League’s team.

It’s Castellanos’ second time selected as an All-Star Game, and he told The Inquirer he has a different mindset this time around and the motivation “is a little less selfish.” He also made a pretty compelling case why Scooby-Doo should be considered a super hero.

“First off, he’s a dog, and he can talk,” Castellanos said Monday. “So, I think a dog that can talk and can help people by solving mysteries is a superhero.”

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. won the All-Star Home Run Derby on Monday night, joining his father, Vladimir Sr., to become the first father-son duo to win the contest. This could be the first year the Derby draws more viewers than the All-Star game. While we’ll have to wait to find out how many fans tuned into ESPN Monday night, last year’s All-Star Game drew just 7.5 million viewers, a record low that barely eclipsed the 6.8 million that watched last year’s Derby.

It’s a dramatic turn for the All-Star Game, which consistently drew over 20 million viewers in the 1990s, according to Sports Media Watch. The last time it garnered an audience that topped 10 million was in 2015. Still, it remains the most-watched all-star event in sports, topping both the NFL Pro Bowl and the NBA All-Star Game.

» READ MORE: Ryan Howard on the Phillies’ first half, his favorite hitter, and — of course — the elimination of the shift

Here’s everything you need to know to watch or stream this year’s MLB All-Star Game:

The 2023 MLB All-Star Game is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Eastern, and will air live on Fox from T-Mobile Park in Seattle.

The game will stream live on the Fox Sports app, though it’s only available there for cable subscribers. It will also stream live on MLB.TV, though the subscription service is hardly worth it for Phillies fans in the Philadelphia market due to its blackout rules.

The game can also be streamed on a host of services that carry Fox, including FuboTV, Hulu With Live TV, DirecTV Stream, Sling TV, or YouTube TV.

Calling the All-Star Game for the second straight year will be Joe Davis, who replaced Joe Buck in the booth last year. He’ll be joined by longtime Fox Sports analyst and Hall of Famer John Smoltz. Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci will report from T-Mobile Park.

Following his Fox Sports debut in London last month, Hall of Famer and 14-time All-Star Derek Jeter will join the network’s pregame coverage of tonight’s festivities beginning at 7 p.m.

He’ll once again join Kevin Burkhardt and fellow analysts Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz. Last time around, Ortiz gifted Jeter a personalized Red Sox jersey and the crew gallivanted around London on a double-decker bus.

New York Post columnist Andrew Marchand described Jeter’s debut a win for Fox Sports, but popular sports talker Dan Patrick wasn’t impressed.

“There’s a lot of forced laughter on that Fox set with A-Rod and Jeter and Big Papi,” Patrick said last month on The Dan Patrick Show.

Among the pregame features Fox will roll out tonight is a piece on Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., who was named the 2001 All-Star Game MVP in his final Midsummer Classic, which happened to take place in Seattle.

The American League defeated the National League 3-2, notching its ninth-straight All-Star Game victory.

The game’s MVP was New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton, whose two-run homer ended an 0-7 All-Star Game hitless streak. Stanton, who once again was forced to deal with injured earlier this season, is hitting just .203 this year and won’t be part of tonight’s festivities.

In previous years, winning the All-Star Game determined which league had home field advantage in the World Series, an attempt to make the event more relevant. It didn’t work, and MLB scraped the rule after 2016.

As part of the settlement between the league and its players that ended the MLB lockout in March, this year’s All-Star Game will have a fun tweak — but only if there’s a tie after nine innings.

Instead of going into extra innings, three players from each league will participate in a mini home run derby that will decide the game, according to rules obtained by the Associated Press. Each player gets three swings, and the team that ends up with the most home runs wins. Players are permitted to take an unlimited number of pitches without being penalized.

If the game remains tied, each team will pick a single player, with the pair facing off three swings at a time. The mini derby will continue until the tie is broken.

The All-Star Game has had a tie just 13 times since its inception in 1933, most recently in 2018, when the game was decided in 10 innings.

The Phillies will face the San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers at Citizens Bank Park following the All-Star break, before hitting the road to take on the Cleveland Guardians.

Here’s the Phillies upcoming schedule