ARLINGTON, Texas — Just when Teoscar Hernández needed a moment to calm down during Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby, the Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder got a boost from a former teammate who just happened to be last year’s champion.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. wore a Toronto Blue Jays jersey with Hernández’s name and No. 37 on the back as he watched the competition, honoring his friend from their time as teammates from 2017 to 2022.
“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 showcase of sluggers when he beat Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. 14-13 in the final round Monday night at Globe Life Field, the site of Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game.
The 31-year-old Hernández hit 49 homers over three rounds that totaled 3.98 miles and became the first Dodger to win the event among 11 who have tried. While not participating 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 the park, left-center field, 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’ve got to do a couple more curls or something.”
The Royals have never had a winner of the MLB Home Run Derby.
AP photo by Julio Cortez / Atlanta Braves designated hitter Marcell Ozuna takes a swing during the MLB Home Run Derby on Monday night at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.Hernández and Witt 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, including a 457-foot drive that got him one more swing.
The Royals made Witt the No. 2 pick of the 2019 MLB draft out of Colleyville Heritage High School, about 15 miles north of Globe Life Field, the home of the reigning World Series champion Texas Rangers. It was his first time in the MLB event, but he was the high school home run champion in Washington in 2018 — and he is the only player to compete in both contests.
The 24-year-old Witt finished with 50 homers overall that traveled 3.8 miles.
Witt had knocked out Cleveland Guardians switch-hitter José Ramírez 17-12 in the semifinals. Hernández beat Alec Bohm of the Philadelphia Phillies 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-center field.
Bohm and Ramírez hit 21 homers apiece to pace the first round, when Witt started with 20 homers and Hernández had 19.
New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso fell short in his bid to join Ken Griffey Jr. as a three-time MLB Home Run Derby champion when he hit only 12 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 semifinals. It then became a bracket-style competition.
Alonso hit a 428-foot homer to left-center on his first swing but couldn’t get into a rhythm. The others knocked out after the first round were local favorite Adolis García of the Rangers, Gunnar Henderson of the Baltimore Orioles and Marcell Ozuna of the Atlanta Braves.
“It’s disappointing, but for me, I think it’s really just a blessing and it’s just fun being out there,” said Alonso, who has 207 homers in his five appearances at the event. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t my day.”
Ozuna, Atlanta’s designated hitter and a National League All-Star for the third time, did have the longest homer of the night at 473 feet. The longest homers hit during games at the stadium were 472 feet — by Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels in 2022 and by Seth Brown of the Oakland Athletics in 2021.
Bohm, one of a franchise-record eight Phillies named NL All-Stars, has only 11 homers this season — the fewest among the eight competitors Monday night. 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 100 degrees outside the ballpark when the slugging began, but the retractable roof was closed on the stadium that opened in 2020. When the Rangers hosted the 1995 MLB All-Star Game across the street at the Ballpark at Arlington, their old stadium without a roof, the Home Run 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, a record at the time, but Thomas beat him 3-2 in the final round.