ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — When Teoscar Hernández needed a moment to calm down during Monday's Home Run Derby, the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger got a boost from a former teammate who just happened to be last year's champion.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. wore a Blue Jays jersey with Hernández’s name and No. 37 on the back as he watched the competition, honouring his friend from their time as Toronto teammates from 2017-22.
“That was a surprise of the night,” Hernández said. “He brings my jersey from Toronto, and when he goes to home plate. He was trying to calm (me) down, and so he had passed two times, and it works. He said he wanted to help me going into the last round."
Hernández won the Home Run Derby when he beat local star Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals 14-13 in the final round of the MLB competition.
The 31-year-old Hernández hit 49 homers over three rounds that totalled 6.5 kilometres and became the first Dodgers player to win the derby among 11 who have tried. While not participating in the derby this year, Guerrero gave Hernández advice during breaks.
“If I have to bet, it doesn't matter who I'm going against, I'm going to bet on myself,” Hernández said when asked if he felt like the underdog. “People maybe underestimate myself.”
Witt, needing one home run to tie with one out remaining, drove a ball to one of the deepest parts of Globe Life Field in left-centre, where it hit halfway up the wall to the left of the 410-foot sign.
“When I hit it I knew I kind of — I didn’t hit it great. But, yeah, I just was trying to blow on it or something,” Witt said with a chuckle. "The first thing I thought was just no pop. … We got to do a couple more curls or something.”
Kansas City has never had a derby winner.
Both finished their two-minute final round with 11 homers, before bonus swings were added. Witt came up short of his first two bonus swings, then hit two homers in a row — one a 457-foot drive that earned him one more swing.
Witt was the No. 2 overall pick by the Royals in 2019 out of Colleyville Heritage High School, about 25 kilometres north of the Rangers' stadium. It was his first time in the derby, but he was the high school home run champion in Washington in 2018 — and is the only player to compete in both contests.
The 24-year-old Witt finished with 50 homers overall.
Witt had knocked out Cleveland switch-hitter José Ramírez 17-12 in the semifinals. Hernández beat Philadelphia's Alec Bohm 16-15 after a tiebreaker when both got three swings — Hernández hit two out, and Bohm one. They were tied at 14 after the three-minute segment and their bonus rounds, and Bohm came close to avoiding that, but the last ball he hit then landed on the warning track in left-centre field.
Ramírez and Bohm both hit 21 homers to pace the first round. Witt started with 20 homers and Hernández had 19.
The New York Mets' Pete Alonso fell short in his bid to join Ken Griffey Jr. as a three-time derby champion when he hit only 12 homers in the first round.
Instead of a single-elimination bracket like last year, the four hitters with the most homers in the first round advanced to the semifinal round. It then became a bracket-style competition.
Alonso hit a 428-foot homer to left-centre field on his first swing, but couldn't get into a rhythm. The others knocked out after the first round were hometown favourite Adolis García of Texas, Atlanta's Marcell Ozuna and Baltimore's Gunnar Henderson.
“It's disappointing, but for me, I think it's really just a blessing and it's just fun being out there,” Alonso said. “At the end of the day, it wasn't my day.”
Ozuna had the longest homer of the night at 473 feet. Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels in 2022, and Oakland's Seth Brown in 2021 have both hit 472 feet homers in games at the stadium that is now in its fifth season.
Bohm, one of a franchise-record eight Phillies named All-Stars, has only 11 homers this season — the fewest among the eight derby competitors. He said he was going to try to hit as many balls as he could to left field and did — pulling all 21 of his homers that way in the first round.
It still felt like 38 Celsius outside the ballpark when the derby began, but the retractable roof was closed on the stadium that opened in 2020. When the Rangers hosted the 1995 All-Star Game across the street in their old stadium without a roof, the derby wasn't yet a prime-time event and was held in the sweltering mid-afternoon heat.
Frank Thomas won in 1995 with 15 homers over three rounds in a different format. Albert Belle finished with a total of 16, then a Home Run Derby record, but Thomas beat him 3-2 in the final round.
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Stephen Hawkins, The Associated Press
