Toronto, ON - For 12 years, the National League All-Stars have had to answer questions about the dominant run of the American League.  Now, the American League simply has to answer, what happened?  A game that promised to be a close-knit, back-and-forth affair turned out to be nothing but an NL coming out party, as the NL All-Stars used dominant pitching and superior bats to crush the American League 19-2.  Philadelphia Philles first baseman, Ryan Howard, took home the All-Star game MVP award for his 3 RBIs, which was all the offense the NL pitching staff would need.

Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Scott Richmond started the game and took the loss, serving up a 2-run bomb to the St. Louis Cardinals' Albert Pujols in the top of the first inning.  Richmond looked shaky from the start, walking leadoff hitter Chipper Jones on five pitches and running the count to 2-0 on Carlos Lee before getting a flyout.  Richmond tried to get ahead of Pujols with a fastball, but the slugger went to the plate looking for a first pitch fastball and promptly hit a 407 foot home run to open the scoring.  "It looked like Richmond was having some trouble with his command to start the game, so I was expecting a pitch to hit in that situation.", Pujols said, "I was looking for a pitch in a certain spot and when I got it, I knew I couldn't miss it." 

The American League came back with a run off San Francisco Giants starter Matt Cain in the bottom half of the first on Bobby Abreu's solo home run and at that point, it appeared it was game on.  Instead, it was game over with the American League unable to push any more runs across against Cain in the first two innings.  The quartet of Carlos Marmol, Aaron Harang, Jonathon Broxton, and Matt Lindstrom all threw a scoreless inning each as the AL offense was unable to mount much of a rally. 

While the NL All-Stars had everything working on the mound, the AL pitching staff looked more like batting practice pitchers than all-stars.  After Scott Richmond got through his two innings allowing only the Pujols homer, the American League turned to Oakland's Dallas Braden and Braden immediately turned to watch Carlos Lee's solo home run sail over the fence to lead off the third.  Basehits to Pujols and Hanley Ramirez and a walk to Jay Bruce loaded the bases, when Carlos Beltran hit a shot to shortstop Alexei Ramirez, which he was unable to field cleanly, allowing Pujols to score and the bases to remain loaded.  Braden got Chase Utley to strike out for the first out of the inning, but Ryan Howard backed up his Phillies teammate by singling in a pair of runs.  Detroit Tigers Justin Verlander was summoned to put out the fire, but he was greeted rudely by a Brian McCann infield single to again load the bases, setting the stage for Chipper Jones to deliver the knockout blow, a full-count grand slam home run.  To make things worse for Verlander, Carlos Lee followed Jones' grand slam with a solo home run of his own, becoming the first All-Star in CDBL history to hit 2 home runs in one inning. 

The NL bats continued to crush AL pitching adding multiple runs in the 5th inning and 6th inning and single runs in the 7th inning and 8th inning.  With the win, the National League will be awarded home field advantage in the World Series, for the first time since this format began.  "Home field advantage is huge for us and hopefully my team will be able to take advantage of it", said Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard.  Whether this is the start of a National League run of dominance remains to be seen; however, for at least one season, NL All-Stars won't have to answer questions about being dominated in the mid-summer classic.