SAN DIEGO – Lack of run support followed Julio Teheran to the All-Star game, though it wasn’t enough to spoil a special night for the Braves ace.
Teheran pitched a perfect inning in his All-Star debut for the National League, which blew an early lead and wasted several scoring opportunities in a 4-2 loss at Petco Park, giving the American League its fourth consecutive win and 22nd in the past 29 All-Star games.
Royals teammates Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez powered a three-run second inning that erased the National League’s first-inning lead and propelled the AL to another win that secures home-field advantage for the American League in the World Series.
But for Teheran, the night was nonetheless unforgettable. And Braves fans got to see their guy retire the side in order in the fifth inning of a game Teheran had long dreamed of being in.
He was so amped that he could barely control his emotions.
“I was very excited; I felt many things that I never had felt before,” Teheran said. “But I tried not to get (caught up in that) and do something more than what I could do.”
He was an All-Star in 2014 but couldn’t pitch in that game after starting the Braves’ final game Sunday before the break that year. The Braves’ only All-Star this season, Teheran’s final first-half start was Saturday, so he was available to pitch Tuesday. He had said Monday how much he hoped to get a chance, and he got it.
He entered to start the fifth inning with the NL trailing 4-2, and got Manny Machado on a long fly-out to the warning track, Edwin Encarnacion on a pop foul to the catcher and Francisco Lindor on a pop fly. Teheran threw nine strikes in 12 pitches, impressive particularly considering the adrenaline.
“Well, I felt pretty good warming up,” he said. “So I was trying to control that pace and take it to the mound. Just throw strikes, that was the key.”
Teheran’s countryman, Jose Quintana, became the first Colombian to pitch in an All-Star game when he worked the top of the fifth for the AL. Teheran faced the White Sox left-hander Saturday in Chicago, marking the first time in major league history that two Colombian pitchers started the same game.
NL starter Johnny Cueto blew a first-inning 1-0 lead when he gave up a pair of homers to his former Kansas City teammates in the second inning, sandwiched around a Mookie Betts single.
“They know Johnny,” American League manager Ned Yost said of Hosmer and Perez, stars of Yost’s World Series champion Royals team that had Cueto in its rotation during an unforgettable playoff run. “They know what he was going to do. But you still have to be able to execute, and I was so proud of Hoz (Hosmer) when he hit that ball, and Salvi (Perez) when he hit it. I felt like a proud papa there in the second inning after those two guys gave us the lead.”
Cubs slugger Kris Bryant’s two-out homer in the first inning off Chris Sale, the ace of the crosstown rival White Sox, provided a 1-0 for the NL. Bryant’s homer was the fourth allowed by Sale in five days, after the lefty gave up three homers against the Braves on Friday.
The Braves snapped his five-start winning streak when Sale allowed 10 hits and a season-high eight runs in five innings.
Sale was replaced after one inning Tuesday, while Cueto came back for a second inning and probably wishes he didn’t.
Hosmer tied the score with a one-out homer, the first by a Royals player in an All-Star game since Bo Jackson in 1989. Two batters later, Perez hit a two-run shot for a 3-1 lead. Cueto was replaced by Jose Fernandez with a runner on and two out, after giving up five hits and three runs.
Hosmer and Perez became the eighth pair of teammates to hit home runs in an All-Star game and the first to do it since Boston’s Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz in 2004.
“Couldn’t have worked out any better,” said Hosmer, who had two hits and two RBIs and was voted the game’s Most Valuable Player. “Salvi and I go way back. We’ve been playing this game together for a long time, and to share that experience and have the game we did tonight was really special.”
The AL added a run in the third against Fernandez after he walked Ortiz with one out. “Big Papi,” retiring after the season, was replaced by a pinch-runner and received a standing ovation as he came off the field, then hugs from most of his AL teammates who came out of the dugout to greet the Red Sox icon.
Xander Bogaerts followed with a double and Hosmer singled for his second RBI and a 4-1 lead.
