ATLANTA (AP) — Kyle Schwarber went 3 for 3 in the first All-Star Game home run swing-off to put the National League ahead 4-3 following a 6-6 tie in which the American League rallied from a six-run deficit on Tuesday night.

In baseball’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shootout, the game was decided by having three batters from each league take three swings each off coaches. The change was agreed to in 2022 to alleviate the concern of teams running out of pitchers.

Schwarber was named All-Star MVP after going 0 for 2 with a walk in the game.

Players from both teams stood outside their dugouts during the swing-off, jumping and shouting after each homer from their side. When Jonathan Aranda’s last swing for the AL fell short, NL players circled around Schwarber to celebrate.

“It was awesome,” Schwarber said. “The guys were really into it. They were yelling, screaming, cheering me on every swing. And then when that last one goes over, they were all pumped. It was a lot of fun.”

Managers had to declare their swing-off orders before the game, although Kyle Stowers subbed for Eugenio Su’rez for the NL after Su’rez was hit on the hand by a pitch late in the game.

Brent Rooker put the AL ahead by homering on his last two swings, and Stowers hit one.

Randy Arozarena boosted the AL lead to 3-1, and Schwarber was successful on all three tries, going down to a knee as he sent the one into the Chop House seats in right.

Aranda failed on all three tries, hitting the right-field wall with his second, and the NL didn’t have to use its last batter, two-time Home Run Derby champion Pete Alonso, as it won for just the second time in the last 12 All-Star Games. The AL leads 48-45 with two ties.

“I was ready for it,” said Alonso, who began warming up in a batting cage when the AL tied the game in the ninth inning. “But I’m glad Schwarbs did it and we did it the easy way.”

Ketel Marte’s two-run double in the first had put the NL ahead, and Alonso’s three-run homer off Kris Bubic and Corbin Carroll’s solo shot against Casey Mize opened a 6-0 lead in the sixth.

The AL comeback began when Rooker hit a three-run pinch homer against Randy Rodriguez in a four-run seventh that included Bobby Witt Jr.’s RBI groundout.

Robert Suarez allowed consecutive doubles to Byron Buxton and Witt with one out in ninth, and Steven Kwan’s infield hit on a three-hopper to third off Edwin Diaz drove in the tying run.

Joe Torre, the 84-year-old former Yankees manager, went to the mound for a pitching change in the eighth to take the ball from Shane Smith and hand it to Andres Munoz. The Hall of Famer was picked as a coach by current New York skipper Aaron Boone, who managed the AL.