Vlad Jr turns down Home Run Derby invite to protect wrist

Table of Content

• This Week In … Telling Hecklers To Cram It!
• Vlad Jr. turns down Home Run Derby invite to protect wrist
• Guerrero hit a record 91 home runs in 2019, but hasn't signed up for a Derby since
• Dodgers News: LA Works Around Payroll With Trevor Bauer Contract
• This Week In … Vladimir Guerrero Jr.!
• This Week In … This Week’s Worst Play of the Week!

"I told them that I wasn't going to be able to do because I preferred to rest and be ready for the second half to help the team win games." With 29 homers, Guerrero broke the all-time Home Run Derby record for most homers in a single round. Just before the event, the Rangers tweeted about that old mark, set by Josh Hamilton in his unforgettable outing at the old Yankee Stadium in 2008. Round two started with Guerrero, and he brought the crowd to its feet with 29 home runs, matching the record that he had set barely an hour ago. But then Pederson, who was the Derby runner-up in 2015, matched him. He hammered his 29th homer as the clock buzzed, and each player was given 60 additional seconds to break the tie.

Carlos Santana, representing Cleveland, delighted the crowd but hit just 13 homers. Pete Alonso managed to beat that just as the clock was winding down, but he heard boos as he beat the hometown hero. “Survive and advance” was Alonso’s mantra throughout the night, and it served him well. With Guerrero going first and Pederson following, both sluggers finished with a round-record 29 home runs in the four-minute time limit, plus the 30-second bonus time for sending two balls more than 440 feet. Both then hit eight more in a one-minute tiebreaker round. In the first round, Vlad Jr. hit 29 homers, breaking the record for most in a single round.

This Week In … Telling Hecklers To Cram It!

With three more swings, Guerrero finally out-hit Pederson and advanced to the final. He hit 40 home runs to Pederson’s 39, which is a truly mind-collapsing number of home runs. CLEVELAND — Carlos Santana got the loudest roar to start the night, and Vlad Guerrero Jr. had the most support throughout, but the winner of the 2019 Home Run Derby was New York Mets rookie Pete Alonso. Guerrero had the crowd in the palm of his hand with his home run heroics , but Alonso hit 23 in the final round. He emerged victorious even though the crowd booed him through most of the night. Votto wasn’t the only player who got the best of a loudmouth in the stands last week.

In his last 30 seconds, just before he topped out at 13 total homers, he looked defeated yet accepting of his fate. Javy Baez on third presumably was going on contact and simply got hung out to dry when Adzolay missed the bunt. Regardless of who screwed up worse, though, this multi-player TOOTBLAN is a deserving winner of This Week’s Worst Play of the Week.

Vlad Jr. turns down Home Run Derby invite to protect wrist

Ninety-one homers dwarfed Alonso’s three-round total of 56, but that’s the trade-off for the Derby’s exciting bracket-style setup that has reinvigorated this event in the past five years. Palmeiro hit 569 career homers and finished with more career Wins Above Replacement than Eddie Murray, Hank Greenberg, and Harmon Killebrew. Yet he faded into the ether once the steroid accusations began and has remained in a kind of limbo ever since. In the world of baseball cards, Palmeiro’s barely worth a dollar.

Guerrero did have the honor of hitting the longest homer of the night, 488 feet, in the second round. That netted him a $100,000 bonus to go with his $500,000 for finishing second, which more than equals his season's salary of $468,468. In the final quarterfinal matchup, the Cleveland Indians' Carlos Santana had the hometown crowd behind him but found his groove too late in the round and finished with 13.

Guerrero hit a record 91 home runs in 2019, but hasn't signed up for a Derby since

Alonso will take home the $1 million prize, but he won’t keep all of it. He’s donating five percent — $50,000 — to the Wounded Warrior Project, an organization he feels connected to through his grandparents, and another five percent to Tunnel to Towers. That match-up was dramatic and thrilling, but it wasn’t the final. Acuña and Pederson squared off to see who would face Guerrero in the last round. Acuña hit 19, but Alonso beat him with another buzzer-beating home run. Oakland’s Matt Chapman, Guerrero’s first competitor of the night, stood no chance.

Robert Ivory wore Vlad Sr.’s Montreal Expos jersey, carried a cutout of Vlad Jr.’s head. He’s a big enough fan of Vlad Sr. that he went to his Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He likes the Indians too — this is Cleveland after all — but he grew up in the era where so many baseball fans were in awe of free-swinging Vlad Guerrero. And now we’re all in awe of his baseball-bashing 20-year-old son. Round after round, Guerrero was hitting lasers into the left field bleachers, most of them landing in the two sections of seats under the left side of Progressive Field’s scoreboard. They started booing Joc Pederson as he pushed Vlad Jr. to all those tiebreakers.

The summer of Vlad Guerrero Jr. is here and his dingerific Home Run Derby show proved it

Alonso turned out to be too tough a challenge after all those previous homers. It took a second swing-off for Guerrero to finally send Pederson home. The 29 homers were enough to take down Matt Chapman in the first round, but Guerrero met his match in the second round with Joc Pederson. Once more, Guerrero blew everyone away with 29 bombs ... Regardless of who gets chosen, the Derby will be a fun time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go light a candle for Big Dan.

The biggest drama of the night came in the semifinal round, when he needed three tiebreakers to eliminate Pederson 40-39. "Oh my God,” Pete Alonso said about Vlad Jr. after his win. “He was so fun to watch. I'm glad I didn't face him in the earlier rounds. Or he probably would have knocked me out." It more than validated Major League Baseball's choice to invite Guerrero, who entered the season as the most well-regarded hitting prospect in years.

Given the advantage of going second, Pederson could only tie Guerrero's one home run in the first swing-off and had two chances to force a fourth tiebreaker but didn't homer on either. Vlad Jr. just wanted a moment to himself, and when he finished answering the final question about his 91-home run performance at the 2019 Derby, he took a breath and said, "Ay dios mio." Vlad Jr. then matched his own record in the second round, finishing with another 29.

Alonso emerged victorious, and that’s when the the fans in attendance finally gave him the cheers he deserved. This wasn’t the Vladito Home Run Derby, though MLB should strongly consider doing that in 2020. Joc Pederson hammered 21 in round one, which was more than enough to beat Alex Bregman’s 16. Ronald Acuña Jr. had an excellent showing with 25 first round homers, and squeezed out Josh Bell and his 18 homers.

Now he has an indelible moment to attach to his name and pedigree, which is the very sort of thing the Derby should serve to do. The 23-year-old participated in the 2019 Home Run Derby, finishing as the runner-up to New York Mets slugger Pete Alonso. Guerrero didn't participate when the derby returned from a one-year hiatus in 2021 but did win All-Star MVP honors. Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will not partake in July's Home Run Derby so that he can preserve his wrist health and focus on the second half of the season, according to Shi Davidi. Guerrero had previously suffered wrist soreness in May, and said that he views abstaining from the Derby as a precautionary measure.

This was Vlad Jr. in all of his tater-mashing glory, announcing his presence on the big stage, living up to his famous father’s name, easily winning over the local crowd and no doubt selling a few more No. 27 Toronto Blue Jays jerseys in the process. Estimated delivery dates - opens in a new window or tab include seller's handling time, origin ZIP Code, destination ZIP Code and time of acceptance and will depend on shipping service selected and receipt of cleared payment. Delivery times may vary, especially during peak periods. "I think is something that I'm going to have to for the rest of my career, so I just want to make sure that I keep doing all my exercises and everything that I have to do to keep it healthy," Guerrero told Davidi.