Jac Caglianone is a gigantic human who can hit baseballs very, very hard and very, very far. But the Home Run Derby is a different beast, and while Cags hit some absolute tanks, he was eliminated in the first round of this year’s contest. Meanwhile, at least one Missouri hitter ended the day as the total victor: Jordan Walker, the St. Louis Cardinals’ budding 24-year-old star, defeated hometown hero Kyle Schwarber in one of the wildest runs in recent Derby history.
That matters, because this year’s Derby was a bit like the contests of old: no clock. No golden ball. But the currency spent here was not outs, but swings: each hitter got 20 swings, and if you got a home run on the final swing, you kept going until you made an out.
Wilson Contreras and Jordan Walker set the stage with some very impressive home runs, notching 12 and 13, respectively. With his dad, Jeff, pitching to him, Cags stepped up to the plate and immediately looked a little nervous, making an out at one point with seven consecutive swings. But he eventually found a groove, unleashing this ridiculous shot to the upper deck:
Cags also unleashed a home run to straightaway center field that went over the batting eye ivy. He ended up with eight home runs. It was a respectable figure and similar to a lot of other hitters in the first round: Muneteka Murakami ended up with only nine home runs after his first round, and two batters later Ben Rice only hit seven. Kyle Schwarber had 10 afterwards. And Bryce Harper himself only got eight home runs. But rules are rules, and Cags didn’t hit as many as his peers, so he fell off.
The format itself—at least to me—was a nice shift away from the frenetic energy of the timed event. Big home runs were given their time to breathe, and there was a little more drama as a result. But Netflix was equally unhurried; Cags was only the third hitter, and it didn’t happen until 45 minutes after the broadcast began.
The Philadelphia crowd helped. They were, at you might expect, feisty. With not one but two Phillies participating, they gleefully sent boos towards the non-Philly hitters. At at one point during Walker’s first go-round, they even booed one of the outfield kids for failing to snag a fly ball.
As mentioned before, the finals shook out to Schwarber, the Philly, against Walker, the Cardinal. The fans were totally into it, rooting for their guy. Schwarber went first, crushing 11 home runs and setting a difficult bar for Walker to hit. Walker, like many of the other hitters after the first round, looked a little gassed. But down to his last swing, he kept hitting dinger after dinger with no margin for error…and walking of Schwarber in an incredible performance.
I’m sure this isn’t the only time Caglianone will be a part of the Derby. He’ll get another chance. And when he does, I think he’ll be ready.
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