Watch Athletics slugger Brent Rooker crush three-run homer in MLB All-Star Game originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
The American League had struggled to score any runs through six innings of the 2025 MLB All-Star Game on Tuesday night, then Athletics designated hitter Brent Rooker came to the plate.
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Rooker crushed a three-run, pinch-hit home run off San Francisco Giants reliever Randy Rodriguez in the top of the seventh inning to break up the National League’s shutout, driving a 2-0 four-seam fastball 407 feet over the left-center field wall at Truist Park to make it 6-3.
Rooker somehow was able to lay off two nasty sliders from Rodriguez, who entered the Midsummer Classic as far and away the best reliever in all of MLB.
“I don’t know how I took those two sliders,” Rooker told FOX Sports’ Tom Verducci in the dugout after his homer. “They were really good pitches, I don’t know. I somehow shut it down on them, and then I was swinging no matter what on that 2-0 pitch hoping it was a fastball, and it happened to be a fastball.”
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Rooker told Verducci he felt “a little more comfortable” coming into his second All-Star Game, and it certainly showed at the plate.
The homer comes one day after Rooker seemingly was robbed of an opportunity to advance in the Home Run Derby on Monday night when eventual champion Cal Raleigh hit a decisive first-round homer just .08 inches further than the A’s star.
But Rooker’s latest homer came when it counted in the All-Star Game, and he kept the AL from leaving Atlanta without scoring a run.
The AL ended up rallying from their 6-0 deficit, scoring six unanswered runs before eventually tying the game in the top of the ninth inning and forcing the first-ever Home Run Derby tiebreaker in All-Star Game history after the NL failed to walk it off in the bottom of the ninth.
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Rooker did his part with two homers, but the AL lost the swing-off and the NL emerged victorious.