MLB All-Star week has long featured one Home Run Derby – and if 2022’s game is tied after nine innings, we’ll get a second one Tuesday night.
MLB’s new rules for the All-Star Game dictate that a Derby will decide the game if it is tied after nine innings, with each league selecting three batters to get three swings each, and the team with the highest total after three rounds winning the game.
And that means that Pete Alonso could still win his third HR Derby in three years, as Alonso is reportedly one of the selections for the NL team.
Per multiple reports, NL skipper Brian Snitker has chosen Alonso and two fellow actual Home Run Derby participants, Kyle Schwarber (the current NL leader in dingers) and Ronald Acuna Jr. to represent his side.
AL manager Dusty Baker chose Julio Rodriguez, who also was in the actual Derby, but did not choose MLB home run leader Aaron Judge or any of the AL’s other participants – instead going with Rodriguez’s Mariners teammate, Ty France, and his own Astro, Kyle Tucker.
The order of hitters has not yet been determined, however.
Acuna Jr. and Schwarber both hit 19 homers in the actual Derby, but lost to Alonso and Albert Pujols, respectively, in the quarterfinals, the latter in a swing-off. The Polar Bear faced off with Rodriguez in the semifinals and lost, 31-24, to end his bid for a three-peat, and J-Rod went on to fall in the finals to Juan Soto, hitting 81 homers total but losing 19-18 in the championship round.
The All-Star Game has gone to extras four times in the last 20 years, most recently in 2018, and the 2008 game went 15 innings.
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