Oak Ridge’s Baker to participate in junior Home Run Derby

MINNEAPOLIS — In the middle of Monday’s Home Run Derby, when Jose Bautista, Yoenis Cespedes and Giancarlo Stanton pelt Target Field with long balls, a burly teenager from Spring will take his own hacks.

Oak Ridge’s Luken Baker, a 17-year-old incoming senior who is listed at 6-4 and 240 pounds, was one of two high school hitters to advance to the big stage. He and eight other hopefuls had a morning competition Sunday at Target Field for the right to move on. The right handed Baker started slowly but totaled eight homers through two rounds and a tiebreaker, with his longest estimated at 431 feet.

Monday’s junior derby, as MLB calls it, is a competition separate from the big leaguers’ — the kids use metal bats — but it is weaved in during the big league action, in front of everyone.

Josh Naylor, a lefthanded-hitting first baseman from Canada, is Baker’s opponent. Baker wasn’t sure he would be able to sleep Sunday night.

“Just meeting all the guys down there, it’s going to be a cool experience,” said Baker, who is committed to play baseball at TCU. “And being able to hit and then go back to all the guys — you know, you see in the bigs how they hit in the Home Run Derby, and everyone’s going, ‘Ooh!’ And then they go back to the guys (where everyone’s cheering you on) and all that stuff, that seems fun. It seems like it’s going to be a good time.”

Baker said he grew up an Astros fan and that his uniform will include an Astros logo on both his hat and jersey.

Jacob Gatewood of California, who won last year, was drafted 41st overall by Milwaukee in June.

Baker said he was noticed as a potential participant in a June tournament for USA Baseball, wherehe wask now nonly as a pitcher. Bill Mosiello, one of his coaches at TCU, called the USA Baseball staff to check in, a routine thing.

“(Mosiello) said, ‘Well, how’s Luken doing?’ ” Baker recalled. “They said, ‘He’s pitching well.’

“‘What about hitting?’ They said, ‘He hits?’ (Mosiello) said, ‘ Yeah, he hits. Give him a bat.’ The first pitch I saw I put a double off the left-center wall.”

Baker said he throws his fastball 92-95 mph and has a slider and changeup too.

“Nothing crazy,” he said.