RJ Hamster
It’s time to pick the All-Star starters
Monday, June 29
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.
It’s time to decide the starters for the 2026 All-Star Game.
Phase 2 of All-Star voting is open — and you only have three days to pick the All-Star starters. So fill out those ballots now.
Shohei Ohtani and Ernie Clement are in already, because they were the top overall vote-getters in each league during Phase 1. But every other starting spot is up for grabs. And as the finalists at each position go head-to-head, the vote totals start from scratch.
Starting now, fans can vote for the All-Star starters once per day until Thursday at noonET. The winners will be announced on July 4on FOX.
Here are five key questions for the All-Star races:
1) Can Rice beat out Vladdy?
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has started four of the last five All-Star Games for the American League at first base. But fellow finalist Ben Rice — who’s looking to make his first All-Star Game — ranks eighth in the Majors with a .928 OPS and is tied for fifth with 22 home runs.
2) Can Caminero hold off Okamoto?
Kazuma Okamoto was a six-time All-Star in his 11 seasons in Japan, and now he could be an All-Star in his first season in MLB. He’s provided nearly all the power for the Blue Jays, with 19 home runs. But his opponent on the All-Star ballot is young superstar slugger Junior Caminero, who started last year’s All-Star Game and put on a show in the Home Run Derby. Caminero has 22 homers for the Rays.
3) Will Trout start his seventh All-Star Game?
Mike Trout has made 11 All-Star Games in his career and started six of them, and when he plays, he’s one of the greatest All-Star Game performers of all time. But he hasn’t made the game since 2023, and he hasn’t started it since 2019. Trout is one of the six AL outfield finalists on the ballot, though, and while he’s still working his way back from a hamstring strain, he hopes to be ready for the All-Star Game.
4) Freeman or Olson?
One of the heavyweight All-Star races is in the National League at first base, where the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman and the Braves’ Matt Olson are going head-to-head. Freeman has started five of the past seven All-Star Games for the NL at first base; Olson has also made a pair of All-Star Games since he replaced Freeman in Atlanta. Both are having typically excellent seasons in 2026.
5) Will Soto start his first Midsummer Classic as a Met?
Juan Soto was an MVP finalist last year in his first season with the Mets … but he wasn’t an All-Star. That should change this year, whether it’s as a starter or as a reserve. But can he earn that All-Star start? Soto is one of the six All-Star finalists for the NL outfield, and rightly so — he’s batting .300 with 17 home runs and a National League-leading .972 OPS.
See our complete guide to Phase 2 of All-Star voting here >>
WORLD SERIES STAR RETURNS TO TORONTO
Bo Bichette was nearly a Blue Jays legend forever, if only his home run off Shohei Ohtani in Game 7 of the World Series had stood up as the game-winner.
Bichette could have been right up there with Joe Carter in Toronto sports lore. Instead, that moment is just one of the many great baseball “What ifs.” But it will surely be on the fans’ minds at Rogers Centre tonight when Bichette returns as a member of the Mets.
The Jays and Mets open a three-game set in Toronto at 7:07 p.m. ET (MLB.TV).
It will be Bichette’s first game back in Torontosince that fateful Game 7, when the Dodgers came back to beat the Jays and clinch their second straight championship. A few months later, Bichette signed a three-year, $126 million free-agent contract that brought him to New York.
Bichette is batting .254 with 10 home runs and 46 RBIs in 84 games in his first season with the Mets, but he’s been great in June, with a .337 average and .932 OPS.
GAMES OF THE NIGHT
Besides Bichette’s return to Toronto, here are two more games to watch tonight.
Rangers at Guardians (7:10 p.m. ET, ESPN)
This is now a matchup of two division leaders. The Rangers just took over the AL West lead from the Mariners — but they lead that division with a .500 record at 42-42, so it’s a wide-open race. And the Guardians are tied with the White Sox for first place in the AL Central.
Padres at Cubs (8:05 p.m. ET, MLB.TV)
Both of these teams have moved up and into the top 10 of our latest Power Rankings. The Cubs rank seventh after a series win against the rival Brewers over the weekend, and the Padres rank ninth on the strength of their sweep of the powerhouse Braves last week.
AROUND THE LEAGUE
Here’s what was going on around the Majors this weekend.
• The Red Sox completed a rare four-game sweep of the rival Yankees — their first since their World Series-winning 2018 season. All in one series, Boston beat Cam Schlittler, got a “Flu Game” from Payton Tolle and turned Fenway Park into “Sonny Night Baseball.” But can they turn the momentum of the sweep into a second-half run?
• The Miz has officially broken the 105 mph mark. Jacob Misiorowski threw a 105.5 mph fastball on Saturday, smashing his own record for the fastest pitch thrown by a starter in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008). The only pitcher to reach a higher velocity than Misiorowski is Aroldis Chapman, who threw a 105.8 mph pitch in 2010 and a 105.7 mph pitch in 2016.
• Kyle Schwarber became the first hitter to reach the 30-homer mark this season with a go-ahead blast in yesterday’s series finale against the Mets. Schwarbs is now on pace for 59 home runs this season, which would be one more than Ryan Howard’s franchise-record 58 in 2006. And the race is on between Schwarber and Bryce Harper to see who can get to the 400 career homer milestone first.
• Junior Caminero isn’t just an All-Star finalist, he’s on a home run barrage right now. Caminero has homered in four straight games and has seven homers in his last six. That’s tied for the most homers in a six-game span by a hitter age 22 or younger in the Modern Era (since 1900), matching Bryce Harper in 2015, Willie Horton in 1965 and Boog Powell in 1964.
• Hunter Goodman’s three-homer game for the Rockies on Saturday brought him to 25 home runs on the season — tied for second most in the Majors behind only Schwarber. Goodman became the first National League catcher since Johnny Bench in 1970 to hit at least 25 home runs in his team’s first 83 games of a season, and just the fourth catcher in MLB history overall (along with Bench, Cal Raleigh last season and Pudge Rodriguez in 2000).
• Royals rookie Carter Jensen has extended his MLB-best hitting streak to 19 games. That’s a new Royals rookie record, as Jensen broke a tie with Maikel Garcia’s 18-game streak from July 26-Aug. 16, 2023. It’s also the longest hitting streak by a rookie catcher within a single season since Buster Posey’s 21-game streak from July 4-28, 2010.
$2.5 MILLION FOR AN OHTANI ROOKIE CARD? SOLD!
When it comes to highly coveted collectibles, rookie cards and 1-of-1’s are king. And the king of them all? A Shohei Ohtani 1-of-1 rookie card, of course.
Last night, a 1/1 Ohtani 2018 Topps Chrome SuperFractor, which was graded 9.5 out of 10 by Beckett, sold for more than $2.5 million via Goldin Auctions.
The very same card sold for roughly $139,000 in November 2022. Since then, Ohtani has won three MVP Awards and two World Series championships, while the market for high-end trading cards in general has flourished.
The crazy thing is, this SuperFractor isn’t even Ohtani’s highest-selling card! A Topps Chrome Gold Logoman Autograph Card, which included both Ohtani’s signature and a game-used gold “Logoman” patch commemorating his 2024 MVP Award, sold for $3 million back in December.
But according to Goldin, the $2.5 million paid for the SuperFractor constitutes the highest public sale price for any rookie card of Ohtani.
Obviously, investing in Ohtani’s greatness at the top end of the collectibles market comes at a steep price. But with the two-way juggernaut the favorite to take home his fifth MVP Award this season, and the Dodgers yet again holding the best record in baseball, this SuperFractor may prove — again — to be a savvy investment.
— Bryan Horowitz
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