In an evening the place it was seemingly sensible to count on the surprising, it was Teoscar Hernández from the Los Angeles Dodgers who wound up changing into MLB’s Residence Run Derby champion for 2024. Certainly, only one season after his good buddy Vladimir Guerrero Jr. received the Derby, Hernández joined his pal within the pantheon of Derby winners by hitting a grand complete of 49 homers on the night time.
In our primer publish for the occasion, I acknowledged that it will’ve been completely possible for the favorites to ship underwhelming performances of their respective debuts within the Residence Run Derby and I personally selected to select my winner from one of many three lower-ranked underdogs. Because it turned out, that ended up being spot-on — Residence Run Derby common Pete Alonso completed next-to-last within the first spherical with 12 homers, Gunnar Henderson (and his Scooby-Doo bat) completed in final with 11, Marcell Ozuna got here up a few dingers in need of advancing to the following spherical and hometown hero Adolis García was unable to make it into the semis.
As a substitute, we ended up with Alec Bohm setting the tone with 21 dwelling runs to begin off the occasion to be able to earn the primary seed. Jose Ramírez made up for his injury-plagued look within the 2022 Residence Run Derby by matching Bohm’s 21 dingers. Bobby Witt Jr. adopted up Alec Bohm by swatting 20 taters (even though his brother-in-law James Russell was tossing some pitches almost eye-level to Witt) after which Teoscar Hernández mashed 19 homers to be able to slide into the semis. For those who had been rooting for the underdog then Monday night time was your night time.
The truth is, the upsets continued for the remainder of the night time. As soon as the semifinals rolled round, Jose Ramírez went by way of a pair of droughts that ended up costing him to the tune of hitting simply 12 homers. In the meantime, Bobby Witt Jr. was as soon as once more in a position to take a bunch of high-and-nearly wayward pitches (for the Residence Run Derby a minimum of) and ship them flying for 15 dingers within the semis. In each the primary spherical and the semis, Witt had a comparatively sluggish begin however then he referred to as timeout and proceeded to complete robust.
On the opposite half of the four-man bracket, Alec Bohm and Teoscar Hernández ended up going to a swing-off after each batters completed off their semifinal spherical with 14 homers. Hernandez seemingly emptied the tank in grandiose vogue to be able to transfer his tally to 16 within the second spherical. Alec Bohm acquired one over the fence however saved it contained in the park along with his different two swing, which meant that it was Dodger Blue vs. Royal Blue to determine who can be this season’s Derby Champ.
Credit score must be given to each Teoscar Hernández and Bobby Witt Jr. for giving the baseball world an exciting ending for the Ultimate and the very best second of the night time that didn’t contain the Nationwide Anthem. Regardless of seemingly being gassed after his intense efforts within the semis and in addition having to go first (however solely after Michael Buffer set the tone for the ultimate showdown with what was very certainly an costly introduction), Hernández used his deliberate tempo to hit one other 14 homers. It initially seemed like that will be sufficient for Hernández to win after Witt acquired off to a different sluggish begin.
Nonetheless, Witt as soon as once more discovered his stride after the timeout and acquired into the bonus spherical of a minimum of bringing a few last swingoff. It certain appeared like Bobby Witt Jr. had performed it and introduced concerning the swingoff as soon as his last swing of the night time went into the air. As a substitute, the ball dramatically died on the warning observe and the Los Angeles Dodgers had their first Residence Run Derby winner in franchise historical past.
Whereas this 12 months’s Derby might not have gotten off to a quick begin, issues actually acquired extra thrilling because the night time went on and we had been actually given a deal with of a last spherical to be able to spherical issues out. Once more, Bobby Witt Jr. deserves loads of credit score for coming in and doing his finest to tug off the upset. Nonetheless, you would additionally simply declare that Teoscar Hernández profitable is a fairly large upset in its personal proper. Whereas Hernández solely trails Shohei Ohtani for homers, I really feel prefer it’s fairly protected to imagine that followers often consider Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith in relation to the Dodgers and energy hitting.
Now that he’s lifted the Residence Run Derby trophy, Teoscar Hernández’s profile ought to a minimum of go up a few ticks. The identical goes for Bobby Witt Jr. as properly, who has been one of the crucial thrilling gamers in baseball and hopefully now we’ll begin to see extra followers take note of each finalists sooner or later. For those who don’t imagine me about simply how enjoyable issues acquired on the finish then simply ask the man who got here up agonizingly in need of a minimum of retaining the Derby going for a number of extra swings:
