By Ashley J. Williams 
When Teoscar Hernandez needed time to calm down during a home run derby, the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger got a promotion from a former teammate who turned out to be last year’s champion.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He wore a Blue Jays jersey with Hernandez’s name and number 37 on the back while watching the competition to honor his friend when he was a Toronto teammate in the 2017-22 season.
“It was the surprise of the evening,” Hernandez said. “He’s bringing my T-shirt from Toronto. And when he came to the marble, he tried to calm me down, and so he died twice, and it works. He said he wanted to help me get to the last lap.””
Hernandez won the home run derby by defeating local star Bobby Witt Jr.in The last round is on Monday evening. defeated by the Kansas City Royals by a score of 14-13.
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Hernandez, 31, hit 49 home runs in three rounds and became the first Dodgers player to win the derby out of 11 players who tried it.
“If I have to bet, no matter who I’m playing against, I’m betting on myself,” Hernandez said when asked if he felt like an outsider.
Witt, who needed a home run to connect with another, drove the ball into one of the deepest parts of Globe Life Field in left-center field, where it struck halfway to the wall.
“When I hit him, for some reason I knew that I didn’t hit him very well. But yeah, I was just trying to blow or something,” Witt said with a smile. “The first thing I thought about was that there was no pop music… we need to make more loops or something like that.”
Kansas City has never had a derby winner. Hernandez earned million for the title, and Witt earned for second place.
Both completed their final two-minute round with 11 home runs before further changes were added. If you want to make additional turns and try to connect them one by one, the series gets powered from 457 feet up, which will give you another turn.
Witt defeated Cleveland opponent Jose Ramirez 17-12 in the semifinals. Hernandez beat Philadelphia’s Alec Bohm 16-15 after a tiebreak, when both scored three goals: Hernandez scored two and Bohm scored one. They drew 14-14 after a three-minute stretch and their bonus rounds, and Bohm was on the verge of avoiding it, but the last ball he scored landed on the control lane in left-center field.
Ramirez and Bohm hit 21 home runs to speed up the first round. Witt started with 20 home runs, and Hernandez had 19. Pete Alonso of the New York Mets failed in his attempt to defeat Ken Griffey Jr. and become a three-time derby champion when he hit just 12 home runs in the first round.
Alonso hit a 428-foot home run in left-center field during his first swing, but he couldn’t find a rhythm. The others eliminated after the first round were Adolis Garcia from Texas, Marcell Ozuna from Atlanta and Gunnar Henderson from Baltimore.
“It’s disappointing, but it’s really a blessing for me and it’s fun to be there,” said Alonso, who had 207 home runs in five derby races. “After all, it wasn’t my day.”
Ozuna hit the longest home run of the evening at 473 feet. The longest home runs in stadium games were 472 feet by Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels in 2022 and Seth Brown of Oakland in 2021.