ARLINGTON, Texas – When Teoscar Hernández needed a moment to calm down during the Home Run Derby, the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger got some encouragement from a former teammate who happened to be last year’s champion.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. wore a Blue Jays jersey with Hernández’s name and number 37 on the back while watching the contest, honoring his friend from his time as a Toronto teammate from 2017-22.
“That was the surprise of the night,” said Hernández. “He has my Toronto jersey on. And when he goes to home plate, he was trying to calm me down, so he passed it twice, and it worked. He said he wanted to help me get to the last round.”
Hernández won the Home Run Derby by defeating local star Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals 14-13 in the final round on Monday night.
Hernández, 31, hit 49 home runs in three rounds that totaled 3.98 miles and became the first Dodgers player to win the Classic out of 11 who tried. Although he did not participate in this year’s derby, Guerrero gave Hernández advice during breaks.
“If I have to bet, it doesn’t matter who I’m going up against, I’m going to bet on myself,” said Hernández when asked if he felt like the underdog. “People might underestimate me.”
Witt, needing a home run to tie and with one left, drove a ball into one of the deepest parts of Globe Life Field in left center, where it hit halfway up the wall to the left of the 410-foot home plate.
“When I hit it, I knew I kind of didn’t hit it very well. But, yeah, I was just trying to blow up or something,” Witt said with a laugh. “The first thing I thought was that there was no pop. We need to do some more curls or something.”
Kansas City has never had a derby winner.
Both finished the final two-minute round with 11 home runs before bonus swings were added. Witt fell short with his first two bonus hits, then hit two consecutive homers — one a 457-foot drive that earned him another hit.
Witt was the Royals’ second overall pick in 2019 out of Colleyville Heritage High School, about 15 miles north of the Rangers’ stadium. It was his first time in the Classic, but he was the 2018 Washington high school home run champion — and is the only player to compete in both competitions.
Witt, 24, finished with 50 total home runs while covering 3.7 miles.
Witt knocked out Cleveland slugger José Ramírez 17-12 in the semifinals. Hernández beat Philadelphia’s Alec Bohm 16-15 after the tiebreaker when both had three hits – Hernández had two and Bohm had one. They were tied at 14 after the three-minute segment and its bonus rounds, and Bohm came close to avoiding that, but the last ball he hit fell into the warning lane in left-center of the field.
Ramírez and Bohm hit 21 homers to accelerate the first round. Witt started with 20 homers and Hernández had 19.
Pete Alonso of the New York Mets failed in his bid to join Ken Griffey Jr. as three-time derby champions when he hit just 12 home runs in the first round.
Instead of a single-elimination bracket like last year, the four hitters with the most home runs in the first round advanced to the semifinals. It then became a bracket style competition.
Alonso hit a 428-foot home run to left-center on his first swing but couldn’t get into a rhythm. The others eliminated after the first round were the city’s favorite, Adolis García, from Texas, Marcell Ozuna, from Atlanta, and Gunnar Henderson, from Baltimore.
“It’s disappointing, but for me I think it’s really a blessing and it’s a lot of fun to be there,” said Alonso, who has 207 homers in his five derby starts. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t my day.”
Ozuna had the longest home run of the night at 473 feet. The longest home runs hit during games at the stadium have been 472 feet – by Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels in 2022, and Seth Brown of Oakland in 2021.
Bohm, one of a franchise-record eight Phillies named All-Stars, has just 11 homers this season — the fewest among the eight derby contenders. He said he would try to hit as many balls as he could to left field and he did – pulling in all 21 home runs that way in the first round.
It still felt like 100 degrees (38 Celsius) outside the stadium when the derby began, but the retractable roof of the stadium that opened in 2020 was closed. On the roof, the derby was not yet a prime-time event and was held in the sweltering mid-afternoon heat.
Frank Thomas won in 1995 with 15 home runs in 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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