Fact: When play resumes on Thursday evening following Tuesday’s 92nd MLB All-Star Game held at Dodger Stadium for the first time since 1980, Dodgers right-hander Tony Gonsolin will begin the (unofficial) second-half of the 2022 regular season with an MLB-best 11-0 record and a National League second-best 2.02 ERA.

Although the 28-year-old Vacaville, CA native and Dodgers ninth-round draft pick in 2016 out of Saint Mary’s College of California in Moraga, CA was charged with the loss in his first ever Midsummer Classic, the annual All-Star Game is – and will always be – an exhibition game, with no bearing whatsoever on his season statistics or MLB’s standings.

That’s the good news.

The not-so-good news is that the three runs that Gonsolin allowed in his one inning of work in the top of the fourth inning on Tuesday evening on a two-run home run by New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton, followed immediately by a solo home run by Minnesota Twins slugger Byron Buxton, prevented Gonsolin’s teammate – future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw – from recording what would have been his first ever All-Star Game win in his first ever All-Star Game start in his (now) nine All-Star Game appearances; this after the National League scored two runs in the bottom of the first inning on a RBI single by (wait for it…) Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts (who was playing center field in this one) with no outs, followed by a two-out solo home run by longtime former Arizona Diamondbacks and now St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.

But without question, the biggest surprise (shocker) of the night was that, after their two-run / four-hit bottom of the first inning, the best players in the National League did not score another run and managed only one addition hit over the next eight innings – a harmless single by Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning.

All of this said, those who were blessed to be at Dodger Stadium for Major League Baseball’s second biggest annual showcase event (behind the World Series) were treated to one of the most spectacular sunsets in recent memory at ‘Blue Heaven on Earth,’ as Dodger Stadium is affectionately known.

But here again and though a very popular annual event for baseball fans around the globe, the All-Star Game is – and will always be – an exhibition game, with no bearing whatsoever on the regular season or the MLB standings … so there’s that.

Play Ball!

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