In an evening the place it was seemingly clever to anticipate the surprising, it was Teoscar Hernández from the Los Angeles Dodgers who wound up turning into MLB’s House 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 put up 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 House 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 — House 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 subsequent spherical and hometown hero Adolis García was unable to make it into the semis.
As an alternative, we ended up with Alec Bohm setting the tone with 21 dwelling runs to start out off the occasion with a view to earn the primary seed. Jose Ramírez made up for his injury-plagued look within the 2022 House Run Derby by matching Bohm’s 21 dingers. Bobby Witt Jr. adopted up Alec Bohm by swatting 20 taters (even supposing his brother-in-law James Russell was tossing some pitches almost eye-level to Witt) after which Teoscar Hernández mashed 19 homers with a view to slide into the semis. In the event you had been rooting for the underdog then Monday night time was your night time.
Actually, 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 capable of take a bunch of high-and-nearly wayward pitches (for the House 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 known as timeout and proceeded to complete sturdy.
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 style with a view to transfer his tally to 16 within the second spherical. Alec Bohm received one over the fence however stored it contained in the park together with his different two swing, which meant that it was Dodger Blue vs. Royal Blue to resolve who could be this season’s Derby Champ.
Credit score needs to be given to each Teoscar Hernández and Bobby Witt Jr. for giving the baseball world an exhilarating ending for the Closing 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 appeared like that may be sufficient for Hernández to win after Witt received off to a different sluggish begin.
Nevertheless, Witt as soon as once more discovered his stride after the timeout and received into the bonus spherical of a minimum of bringing a few remaining swingoff. It certain appeared like Bobby Witt Jr. had achieved it and introduced concerning the swingoff as soon as his remaining swing of the night time went into the air. As an alternative, the ball dramatically died on the warning monitor and the Los Angeles Dodgers had their first House Run Derby winner in franchise historical past.
Whereas this 12 months’s Derby could not have gotten off to a quick begin, issues actually received extra thrilling because the night time went on and we had been actually given a deal with of a remaining spherical with a view to spherical issues out. Once more, Bobby Witt Jr. deserves loads of credit score for coming in and doing his greatest to tug off the upset. Nevertheless, you can additionally simply declare that Teoscar Hernández successful is a reasonably 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 normally consider Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith in relation to the Dodgers and energy hitting.
Now that he’s lifted the House 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 thrilling gamers in baseball and hopefully now we’ll begin to see extra followers take note of each finalists sooner or later. In the event you don’t consider me about simply how enjoyable issues received on the finish then simply ask the man who got here up agonizingly in need of a minimum of protecting the Derby going for just a few extra swings:
