And will you look at that!? Cano has come back, not only to tie Gonzalez, but to beat him with two outs to spare! Just when I was beginning to lose interest. Just when I thought it was not about the competition. Just when I thought the rest of the broadcast would be comprised of the first-timer going through the motions and flaming out after an impressive two rounds, he comes back with a flair for the dramatic and wins it all, proving that the Derby can be exciting and unbelievable and fun for the whole family.
We've had a lot of fun here tonight, but what we should take away from all this is that it's never too late for a feat of sheer will to help you overcome nearly insurmountable odds. And that you should never give up, no matter how stacked the circumstances are against you. And that it's not over until it's over.
I hope you've all had fun reading my real-time thoughts about the amazing piece of history we just saw occur. And since I've still got an hour before my flight starts boarding, I've got nothing left to do but recount it in my head over and over....
10:51pm EST
Fielder's long road to 15 he needs to keep his league alive in this competition is off to a slow start. I think we can call this one right now for the American League, both in terms of cumulative totals (53-19) and in that the eventual winner will come from the AL. The NL may have won its first All-Star game in a long time last year, but they will have to wait until next year to seek triumph in the Derby.
So it comes down to this, a battle between AL contestants, between AL East players, between representatives from perhaps the most storied rivalry in the sport right now, the Yankees and the Red Sox. Each has exactly the same home run total coming in (not that it matters). Each has exactly the same on the line.
It's looking a little one-sided now, as Gonzalez continues his hot streak and gives Cano an equally astronomical mark to reach as he puts up a 13-spot on the board in the finals. Pretty straightforward now as Cano is finished unless he can perform exactly as he did in the second round. No flameouts allowed, or the Yankee's night is finished!
10:28pm EST
It's always around this time in the Home Run Derby that my interest starts to fade. I've seen all the contestants take their swings. This cumulative second round is really just an extension of the first round, which we've already seen happen. The competition aspect is a little muted, unless Prince Fielder can follow up his awesome swing-off performance (5 HRs in 5 swings!) with an even more impressive second round - the lone NL representative will need another 5 just to put him ahead of the leader's first round performance, and that's assuming Gonzalez goes homerless in his next 10 outs.
Meanwhile Ortiz added 4 to his total, pulling him even with Gonzalez, so that all his teammate needs to surpass the team captain is one more. Cano continues to mash, all but assuring him a spot in the final two. (Although he'd better pull back if he wants to have anything left in the tank for the non-cumulative final round.) Thus unless Fielder goes on a spree of 10+ homers in a row, he's pretty much out for the count. Is it me, or does making the first and second rounds cumulative put way too much emphasis on the first round? I guess the competition part is less important than just seeing all those power hitters up there doing their things.
Wow, Cano just blasted his 11th in the second round, to go with his 8 in the first round. I predict a flameout, just like what happened to Jason Giambi in the fated 2001 contest when he lost to Luis Gonzalez after setting a first-round record. To return to the present, Adrian Gonzalez just eliminated his teammate and captain with a single home run, but keeps on blasting more and more, tying Cano with 20 total homers. (At least now each contestant has an equal chance of flameout.) Fielder, the NL team captain now needs to belt at least 15 bombs in this second round to remain in contention. At least he's going last to maintain the drama. Although it's looking more and more like the blowout we knew it would be in the first round....
9:47pm EST
The two batters last to hit are the "Team Captains" of the AL and NL squads. I'm watching this from an airport bar, sitting too far away to read any of the closed captions of the commentary, so I'm not exactly sure how this works. In the rules, it says the top home run totals advance to the next rounds, so what should it matter what team they're on or who their captain is? But I guess leadership counts for something, as David Ortiz and Prince Fielder get last ups.
I remember when "Big Papi" went through a scare a couple of years ago, where commentators and fans pronounced him gone from the ranks of serious home run threats. But although he'll likely never again approach the 50-homer totals he's amassed in seasons past, he's still showing some pop out here in the desert.
Prince Fielder is an appropriate contestant to be up right now, especially considering all the hype surrounding the new Moneyball movie coming out. (No, I haven't seen the trailers, and no, I don't plan to, despite my fascination with both the Oakland A's and the entertainment industry; Spoiler Free is the Way to Be.) Some of you might recall that back in 2002, the A's draft team was terrified that the Brewers, who picked before the A's, would deprive them of their prize, outfielder Nick Swisher. How happy they were when supposedly sentimental reasons (Fielder's father, Cecil, played for the Brewers in the past) led to Prince's selection, leaving Swisher for the A's. And it's a good thing Beane didn't pick Fielder when he had the chance - when your team is second-to-last in the league with a .337 Slugging Percentage, who needs an offensive force with 50-homer potential?
Well, it's settled! Or is it? A-Gon and Robbie Cano are definitely advancing, but then we have three guys tied with five home runs apiece all vying for the last two spots. It looks like we're going into a 5-swing tie-breaking swing-off for each three. Since the totals from the first two rounds are cumulative, these tie-breaker round homers don't count towards that total. It's nice that there's still a chance for equal participation from AL and NL... although the advantage clearly goes to the two AL-guys with high totals.
The final tally (swing-off totals in parenthesis, advancing players highlighted):
AL: 26
Gonzalez: 9
Cano: 8
Bautista: 4
Ortiz: 5 (+4)
NL: 15
Holliday: 5 (+2)
Weeks: 3
Kemp: 2
Fielder: 5 (+5!)
9:19pm EST
Jose Bautista: where did this guy come from, am I right? Someone without any real history of smacking a lot of home runs last year suddenly discovers some amazing power and leads the league getting a chance to start in Toronto. Now he's on pace to do something that has been done only eight (8) times in Major League history: finish the year with more than 60 home runs. He's not going to set any Derby records with just four homers, but I'd rather have someone who can hit them in games than hit them in exhibitions any day.
I've got to say, I'm not too excited by Matt Kemp's chances to put up a lot of dingers here in Arizona. He is famous for smacking hitting his homers to straightaway center field, and this park has a gigantic wall up there, plus it is extra deep. I hope he doesn't try to change his approach to pull or push too much, because it's that straight-out power that helps him succeed in the 395-foot-to-CF Dodger Stadium. And sure enough, he didn't get one out of there until his final outs, with most of his hardest hits landing for flyouts to straightaway center. I've got to say, I'm not very optimistic about the National League's chances so far...
AL: 21
Gonzalez: 9
Cano: 8
Bautista: 4
NL: 10
Holliday: 5
Weeks: 3
Kemp: 2
8:59pm EST
Wow, Cano's off to a hot start. Three bombs in his first four swings. If only he hit enough dingers during the season to crack the top ten in homers in the AL, it might justify his presence a little more? Maybe it has something to do with his position - he and Rickie Weeks are both second basemen, not a position historically noted for home run power. And yet there's his teammate, Curtis Granderson (second in the league in HR) providing Cano with a rosin bag and pumping up the crowd rather than taking cuts at the plate. Puzzling...
Cano does have some kind of sweet swing, though, doesn't he? Which brings me to another concern that potential #HRDerby contestants seemingly should have: the effect that taking so many "fake" swings has on one's regular-season swing. Maybe it's some weird confirmation bias, but it seems to me that in the past, players who have performed well in the Home Run Derby suddenly experience a drop in power production immediately following the exhibition. Perhaps Rickie Weeks is aware of that possibility and is using his bright-blue neon shoes as a superstitious way to combat this real or imagined trend.
I don't know if anyone has conducted any kind of study on this, but Weeks seems to be most likely to suffer a post-derby power outage than the rest of these contestants. He only last year developed his power stroke, and who knows how all this emphasis on his big flies will affect his approach at the plate in the future. Perhaps his poor showing in this year's Derby (only 3 home runs) will cause him to second-guess his swing and start making adjustments. I wish him continued success - if only for the sake of his younger brother, who has just taken the first steps on what promises to be a long and fruitful career with the Oakland A's - but don't care too much about the rest of 2011, seeing as he's not on my fantasy team.
AL: 17
Gonzalez: 9
Cano: 8
NL: 8
Holliday: 5
Weeks: 3
8:41pm, EST
Looking at the list of players appearing in the 2011 State Farm Home Run Derby in Phoenix tonight, I can't help but cock my head to the side in slight confusion at how they select the participants. I get that there are four representatives from the AL and four from the NL, but shouldn't it be the top Home Run hitters from each league? You'd think so, but then why is Adrian Gonzalez (tied for 10th in the AL) stepping in to lead off for this squad?
And I know Matt Holliday did a good job of picking up his team when Phat Albert was down with that wrist injury, but when his another one of his teammates (Lance Berkman) is surprisingly leading the National League in Home Runs, don't you think he deserves to be up there swinging the bat, rather than commenting from the sidelines? As much fun as it is to see the hulking, bald-headed, cornfed Sooner swing the bat, dude's not even in the top ten in the league.
I have to plead ignorance here; do the powers that be on the Home Run Derby committee go down the line of the players with the highest HR totals in each league until they get four that say yes? Or is there some algorithm they make use of to determine the best contestants - one that takes into account home run totals from the current year, the previous year, while also weighing in some special "showmanship quotient" to make sure the broadcast is entertaining?
Maybe Berkman was approached for this honor and declined. His amazing first-half comeback makes for a great story, but maybe he doesn't want to jinx it by putting himself in this kind of spotlight. Maybe at age 35 and with a troubling injury history he's worried he might tweak something over the course of several dozen exhibition swings. Or maybe he wasn't even asked, for some undisclosed reason. Even after thinking about all these questions during the first commercial break, I haven't been able to figure it out. Respond with thoughts in the comments section, or Tweet them at me why not at @Hunter_S_Batman
AL - Adrian Gonzalez: 9
NL - Matt Holliday: 5
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