PHILADELPHIA — Kyle Schwarber kept his Home Run Derby dreams alive on his home turf Monday night, blasting nine home runs in the second round to defeat Boston’s Willson Contreras and punch his ticket to the finals at Citizens Bank Park.
The Phillies’ slugger and major league home run leader will now square off against St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker in the championship round.
The atmosphere inside Citizens Bank Park was electric, with Philadelphia fans providing a raucous backdrop for every swing — particularly during the matchup between Schwarber and Contreras, who were teammates on the 2016 World Series champion Chicago Cubs. Contreras was met with loud boos that only grew with each home run he hit, and the crowd erupted when his final swing resulted in nothing more than a flyball that landed on the All-Star logo painted in short-center field.
Schwarber struggled out of the gate, failing to clear the fence on his first three swings of the second round. He then rattled off four consecutive home runs — most of them pulled by the left-handed hitter into the right-field seats in the first or second decks — sending the crowd into a frenzy.
“This place is electric,” Schwarber said. “Follow the energy. Follow the energy they bring.”
On the other side of the bracket, Walker made quick work of Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, hitting his sixth homer of the second round with seven swings still remaining. Caminero — last year’s runner-up to Seattle’s Cal Raleigh — managed just five home runs on 15 swings after totaling 12 in the first round.
Walker, a 24-year-old who was selected in the first round of the 2020 draft, is enjoying a breakout season with 22 home runs for the Cardinals. He took the plate wearing a backward cap, reminiscent of Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr.
Phillies star Bryce Harper, who said earlier Monday that this would be his final Home Run Derby appearance, managed only eight home runs in the first round and was the last hitter of the round with a chance to advance. The crowd went wild trying to will him into the next round, but it wasn’t enough. Harper previously won the Derby in 2018 in Washington while playing for the Nationals.
Schwarber, who made the finals in 2018 at Nationals Park before losing to Harper, had hoped both he and his teammate would move on this time around.
“Bittersweet,” Schwarber said after the first round. “I wanted both of us to move on.”
Kansas City’s Jac Caglianone and New York Yankees slugger Ben Rice also failed to advance from the first round. In the second round, Contreras and Walker each hit 13 home runs, while Caminero finished with 12.
Schwarber didn’t connect on one of his trademark long balls until his sixth swing of the first round, then followed up with home runs on his seventh, eighth, and ninth attempts — a stretch reminiscent of his four-homer game last season against Atlanta.
MLB changed its format this season, abandoning the timed clock and returning to a swing-based system. Each hitter received 20 swings in the first round, with the top four advancing. In the second round, hitters took 15 swings, and any batter who homered on their final swing kept going until they failed to go deep.
The new format gave hitters a bit more time between swings to watch their blasts — and gave the Philadelphia crowd a few extra seconds to unleash their boos at Contreras.
Schwarber and Harper — the first pair of teammates to participate in the Derby since 2018 — received thunderous ovations when ring announcer Michael Buffer introduced them before the competition. The other six participants, all wearing home jerseys with red, white, and blue uniform numbers, were loudly booed, with Rice drawing the biggest jeers. He laughed it off as he walked out from his Liberty Bell entrance.
Harper played to the crowd, waving his arms and shaking the ropes at the home plate platform like a professional wrestler as the fans went wild for the star known as The Showman.
Even the ball-shagging kids in the outfield weren’t spared from the boos.
Some highlights from the first round included Caglianone launching a ball deep into the third deck in right field, and Contreras sending several shots into the upper deck in left field, including one that bounced off the concourse in front of a bar after clearing the last row of seats. His longest blast measured 490 feet, making it the longest of the first round.
The longest Home Run Derby shot since Statcast began tracking in 2016 remains a 520-foot blast by Juan Soto in the thin air of Denver’s Coors Field during the 2021 event.
This was Citizens Bank Park’s first Home Run Derby and All-Star Game since the ballpark opened in 2004, and the first Derby held in Philadelphia since Barry Bonds defeated Mark McGwire in an afternoon event at Veterans Stadium in 1996 — in front of thousands of empty seats.
This year’s Derby was a sellout and aired on Netflix for the first time as part of a three-event package the streaming service secured this season. Netflix previously aired the opening night game, and the third event is the Field of Dreams game between the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies scheduled for August 13.
