POWER SURGE
Stanton, Judge head the field for tonight’s Home Run Derby
Monster mashers line up in Miami for today’s Home Run Derby
All of the buzz is focused on the Monsters of Mash. It is the dream Home Run Derby matchup, the two biggest boppers in a game of oneupmanship to see who can hit the ball farther and with greater frequency.
Imagine what Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton did last year in belting 61 homers over three rounds out of Petco Park in San Diego, in duplicate. Because Stanton now has the perfect foil in New York Yankees rookie Aaron Judge, who in the first half of the season hit the most homers (30), the longest (495 feet) and the hardest (121.1 mph).
“That would be sweet if those two were in the final to put on a show,” said former Marlin Derrek Lee, a two-time All-Star. “I don’t know if the game has ever seen two guys with as much power as those guys.”
Yet there is no guarantee of Stanton and Judge meeting in the final tonight at Marlins Park.
They will each need to win two preliminary rounds to set up the winner-take-all showdown that most fans, and certainly ESPN, wants to see under the single-elimination format instituted two years ago.
In addition to the other six competitors, the x-factor will be the jumbo dimensions of the ballpark. It’s a subject Stanton has grumbled about often in
the 5½ seasons since the Marlins opened their home in Little Havana, though he has hit 13 of his 24 homers there this season.
“I think because it is a big ballpark — it is a big-boy ballpark, that in the end the biggest, strongest guys are going to outlast the others,” said Karl Ravech, who is replacing Chris Berman as the voice of the Derby on the ESPN broadcast.
Success for everyone in the field will be dictated to a large degree by where they hit the ball. Lee, who hit 331 career homers but lost quite a few more on balls hit to the socalled Bermuda Triangle area in center field at the Marlins’ former home (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, can attest.
The vast reaches to the right of the home run sculpture in center at Marlins Park, with a max distance of 407 feet to the 13-foot wall, is similarly to be avoided.
“You’re going to try to pull the ball, right? I think in any park you have the same approach,” he said.