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 changing into MLB’s House Run Derby champion for 2024. Certainly, only one season after his good buddy Vladimir Guerrero Jr. gained the Derby, Hernández joined his pal within the pantheon of Derby winners by hitting a grand complete of 49 homers on the evening.
In our primer submit for the occasion, I said that it might’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 choose 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 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 in an effort 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 though his brother-in-law James Russell was tossing some pitches practically eye-level to Witt) after which Teoscar Hernández mashed 19 homers in an effort to slide into the semis. In case you have been rooting for the underdog then Monday evening was your evening.
In reality, the upsets continued for the remainder of the evening. 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 House Run Derby at the very least) 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 trend in an effort 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 determine who can 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 evening 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 absolutely an costly introduction), Hernández used his deliberate tempo to hit one other 14 homers. It initially regarded like that might be sufficient for Hernández to win after Witt received off to a different sluggish begin.
Nonetheless, Witt as soon as once more discovered his stride after the timeout and received into the bonus spherical of at the very least bringing a couple of closing swingoff. It certain appeared like Bobby Witt Jr. had performed it and introduced concerning the swingoff as soon as his closing swing of the evening went into the air. As a substitute, the ball dramatically died on the warning observe and the Los Angeles Dodgers had their first House Run Derby winner in franchise historical past.
Whereas this 12 months’s Derby might not have gotten off to a quick begin, issues definitely received extra thrilling because the evening went on and we have been definitely given a deal with of a closing spherical in an effort 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. Nonetheless, you possibly can 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 secure to imagine that followers often consider Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith in the case of the Dodgers and energy hitting.
Now that he’s lifted the House Run Derby trophy, Teoscar Hernández’s profile ought to at the very least go up a few ticks. The identical goes for Bobby Witt Jr. as effectively, who has been probably the most thrilling gamers in baseball and hopefully now we’ll begin to see extra followers take note of each finalists sooner or later. In case you don’t imagine me about simply how enjoyable issues received on the finish then simply ask the man who got here up agonizingly in need of at the very least protecting the Derby going for a number of extra swings:
