Teoscar Hernandez ends Dodgers’ derby drought by staying calm and calling his shots

ARLINGTON, Texas — Mike Piazza… Cody Bellinger… Matt Kemp… Corey Seager… Max Muncy… Mookie Betts… Yasiel Puig.

They all managed to send a series of home runs into the ozone of Chavez Ravine for the Los Angeles Dodgers. But none of them ever did what Teoscar Hernández did Monday night in the heart of Texas.

Until Monday, no Dodgers of this generation had won a home run derby. But it’s a drought in California that no one has to worry about anymore, because Hernández has bailed them all out.

Hernández knocked off hometown hero Adolis García of the Rangers in the first open round, beating him 19-18 to advance to the head-to-head semifinals. He survived a wild exit to defeat Alec Bohm of the Phillies in the second round, 15-14. Then Hernández rose one last time to survive a thriller in the final against Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals, 14-13.

And before he knew it, the hero of the moment was sitting on a podium, deep in the bowels of Globe Life Field, with a gleaming Derby trophy in front of him and a glittering Derby chain around his neck, basking in a special moment.

He was a 12-to-1 underdog in Las Vegas, the second-worst odds in the field. But apparently no one consulted Hernandez before setting those odds.

“If I have to bet,” he said, “it doesn’t matter who I’m playing against. I’m going to bet on myself.”

“People maybe underestimate me. You could see it at the end when Witt hit all those home runs. Everybody was behind him. But I’m here. And I’m just as talented as all those guys.”

Hernandez’s 49 homers were the second-most by a Dodger in a Derby, behind only Joc Pederson, who hit 60 (in a different format) in 2019. But beyond those two, it won’t take long to recap the most glorious moments in Dodgers Derby history — because no major franchise in history has been more allergic to Derby heroics than this one.

Remember the troubles of Piazza and Puig? They combined their efforts to participate in three derbies and scored zero Home runs. Kemp attempted two and hit a total of three. Even Mookie Betts only hit 11 last summer, when he went out and tried to show off his Derby form in Seattle.

But there was something about Teoscar Hernández that seemed made for this moment. And the Dodgers manager who fed him all those long balls, Dino Ebel, said he felt it all night, even when Hernández seemed in deep trouble against Bohm and Witt.

“That guy believed in himself,” Ebel said. “I believed in him. He showed the world tonight that when it mattered, he was there. … I’m so proud of him and so happy for the Dodgers organization, for the first time, because there’s been some heavyweights in that organization.”

Was Hernández close to being knocked out of this derby? In his semifinal game against Bohm, he had only three home runs and had used half of his allotted three minutes when he called a timeout. His teammate, Tyler Glasnow, walked over with a bottle of water and was amazed by Hernández’s impassiveness about the hole he had just dug.

“He said, ‘I’m going to hit six or eight home runs now,'” Glasnow said, shaking his head in disbelief. “And then he hit seven.”

He hit seven, in fact, in nine swings — and finished the round with 14. He sat and watched nervously as Bohm pitched in, tied it at 14 with one swing remaining, then curled what looked like a game-winning home run down the line, only to see it land just the wrong side of the foul pole.

So that led to a three-round decider, which Hernández essentially won with a monstrous 456-foot lunar orbiter, going 110 mph at the start. It reentered Earth orbit on the second floor, 10 rows above the Gardeners Trust sign, center left. And Teoscar was on his way to the final.

But once again, in this big final against Witt, Hernández got off to a brutal start. More than halfway through his two-minute inning, he had hit just four home runs. So he called a timeout with just 57 seconds left.

His old Toronto Blue Jays friend Vladimir Guerrero Jr. then stepped forward, pointing to the bullpen in left-center field. The message: Stop trying to do everything and do what you do best.

Glasnow then walked over with his water bottle and said, ‘This is the time I’m going to lock it down,'” Glasnow said with a laugh. “He announced it. Before every round, he told me he was going to do what he did. And when he said things like that, I would just say, ‘Hey, great. You want some water?'”

So, one last time, in that final inning, Hernández went back to work. He hit a home run into the bullpen. He belted seven home runs in 10 swings. Then he came back for his bonus round, reached his final out and hit two more mammoth bombs, the last one from 449 feet into the second deck.

Then he collapsed into his seat, relieved and exhausted.

“I was under pressure,” he told ESPN’s Buster Olney. “I’ll be honest with you.”

But he still had to watch Witt’s magic show. On his last out and down three runs, the Royals’ talented shortstop hit a 450-foot shot to the second floor to pull within two runs. Then he launched another rocket that was halfway to Galveston when it landed on the second floor. He was now down one run. And then…

One last thunderbolt from Witt was thrown into the night as 38,578 people cheered. James Russell, Witt’s personal pitcher, brother-in-law and former major league reliever, couldn’t help but turn to watch and try to throw it over the fence.

“I thought it was over,” Russell said. “Usually I try not to look at these balls because I want to stay focused, but I was really careful with that one.”

But Witt had hit the ball deep to left-center field, one of the farthest spots on the field. The ball then crashed into the fence. He had missed a swing.

“When I hit it, I knew I didn’t hit it right,” Witt said. “I was trying to blow on it or something. The first thing I thought was, ‘No pop. I’ve got to do a few more loops.’”

But now imagine being Hernandez, so close to a Derby title he might taste it, and having to watch that baseball fly toward the fence.

“Oh, my God,” Hernandez would later say. “I was nervous. … But thank God he didn’t come out.”

Teoscar Hernandez, the first Dodger to win the Home Run Derby! pic.twitter.com/f98vvydJ2c

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 16, 2024

And so, just eight months after the Seattle Mariners pulled their offer and let him walk, Teoscar Hernández had done what all those Dodgers crushers before him had so clumsily failed to do. It was his night. And it was his Derby.

If anyone knows what a true Derby champion looks like, it’s Ebel, the pitcher who served up all those home runs. He was the man on the mound, pitching to three previous Derby finalists. And in Hernández, he saw a quality he’d seen in previous champions.

“His calm. That’s what he brings,” Ebel said of his man, Teoscar. “I always say the lights are bright, it’s never bright for him. He knows how to slow the game down. He knows how to slow himself down. …

“And I saw it and I knew it. I saw it with Vlad (Guerrero Sr.) in 2007 when we won in San Francisco. I pitched against (Albert) Pujols in 2015 and Joc Pederson in 2019. Tonight, when we got to the finals, I knew he was going to show up, and he did. So that’s Teo. That’s what he does.”

— The AthleticTyler Kepner contributed to this report.

---

(Top photo: Gene Wang/Getty Images)