Instead, Robinson Cano's performance may go down in the history of the Home Run Derby. Cano blasted 12 home runs in the final round, and he edges Adrian Gonzalez to win the Derby crown for 2011.
10:50 p.m.: Without sounding like we're getting too carried away, has there even been a better Home Run Derby than what Adrian Gonzalez has done?
The consistency of these rounds have been a mirror image of his season thus far, and he just capped off his Derby with 11 homers in the final. That gives Gonzalez 31 blasts for the night, and he hit no fewer than nine in each round. Pretty impressive stuff.
The pressure is definitely on Cano, who can win this thing if he's able to duplicate his last round in which he hit 12 homers. Should be fun.
10:35 p.m.: Prince Fielder hit some missiles in the second round, but it's not enough.
That collective groan you hear across the country? That's everyone being let down by the fact that the Red Sox and the Yankees are meeting once again.
This time, it will be in the finals of the Home Run Derby, as Adrian Gonzalez and Robinson Cano are set to do battle in the finals.
They're both at 20 apiece, so it's one round for the crown.
10:27 p.m.: Barring a miracle, it looks like it will be Robinson Cano and Adrian Gonzalez in the finals.
Gonzalez just wrapped up an 11-homer second round that ties him with Robinson Cano at 20 home runs through two rounds.
The first baseman's round eliminates David Ortiz from contention, and it will take 15 in the second round from Prince Fielder to stay alive. It's possible, but it's probably not likely.
By the way, as impressive as Gonzalez's first round was, his second round outdid it. At one point, the slugger pounded seven consecutive home runs, going all over the ballpark. He is something else.
10:17 p.m.: The rest of the baseball world probably isn't enjoying this, what with Robinson Cano dominating the derby, but the Yankees second baseman is putting on a show.
He followed up a terrific first round with an even better second round, the best round for any hitter of the entire night.
Cano just blasted 12 home runs in the second round which, you would have to think, would put him in the finals. You know, as long as Adrian Gonzalez doesn't hit 12 of his own and Prince Fielder doesn't blast 16.
Back to Cano, though. He finally did something in the second round that he hadn't done all night. He hit a ball that didn't go 400 feet. His 385-foot homer in the second round was his shortest of the night, but that's only because it ran out of airspace. Had there been a wall there to stop it, the ball would have gone through it. To quote another AL East second baseman, "Laser show."
Adrian Gonzalez, who had the clubhouse lead after the first round, is due up next. As of this minute, it's been 108 minutes since his first round has ended. That may not be good.
10:00 p.m.: David Ortiz requested a music change after a couple of outs in his second round performance. The folks at Chase Field obliged, and Ortiz actually got temporarily hot, before cooling off again.
When it was all said and done, Ortiz homered four times to give himself an aggregate score of nine. That may not allow Ortiz to defend his title. We'll see, though.
9:47 p.m.: Prince Fielder is moving onto the second round, as the NL's only representative after hitting absolute moonshots on all five of his swings. Well then.
So, it will be Adrian Gonzalez, Robinson Cano, David Ortiz and Prince Fielder moving on.
9:45 p.m.: David Ortiz is moving on after hitting four home runs on his five swings. Now, it's up to Prince Fielder to try and advance and send my pick of Matt Holliday packing.
9:42 p.m.: Matt Holliday hits two home runs in his five swings. David Ortiz coming up.
9:40 p.m.: Prince Fielder hits the ball very, very high. If I had a child that was shagging fly balls in the outfield, I'd be more concerned about having them catching a fly ball off of his bat than a line drive off of anyone else's.
Anyway, five home runs for Fielder. That puts him in a three-way tie with Ortiz and Holliday.
Everyone gets five swings in the swing-off. Most after five swings moves on. Simple. Go.
9:31 p.m.: At the very least, David Ortiz will have a play-in showdown to get into the second round.
The defending champion wasn't exactly spectacular, but he's still got a chance to move on.
Ortiz hit five home runs, which ties him with Matt Holliday for third behind Adrian Gonzalez and Robinson Cano.
However, Prince Fielder still has to hit to wrap up the first round. If he hits fewer than five, Ortiz and Holliday are into the second round with the two leaders. If Fielder goes higher than five, then Holliday and Ortiz will have duel it out in a swing-off.
9:21 p.m.: Matt Kemp struggled like you read about. Sure, he hit a a couple of home runs with nine outs, but two was all he could muster. Not a very impressive show for the Dodgers outfielder.
However, this is where we must have our obligatory Rihanna reference, because apparently that must be mentioned along with every Matt Kemp reference. So there you go. He once dated Rihanna. It's all good.
David Ortiz coming to the plate.
9:08 p.m.: Jose Bautista hit his fourth home run deep into the Arizona night (er, roofed twilight) into the second deck at Chase Field. Unfortunately for Bautista and the AL team, however, that was also the final home run he hit.
His round wasn't Rickie Weeks-bad, but it certainly wasn't good. He'll need a lot of help to get into the second round at this rate.
No word on whether he'll be excommunicated from the AL East if he does not advance to the second round.
8:57 p.m.: Remember that time Rickie Weeks swung and missed at the first ball he saw in the Home Run Derby? Well, yeah, of course you do because it was a few minutes ago.
Rickie Weeks just made NL captain Prince Fielder an even more unpopular person in the greater Phoenix area after the Milwaukee second baseman hit just three home runs.
Fielder got an earful from the Diamondbacks fans at Chase Field for not taking hometown favorite Justin Upton. Lesson learned.
Anyway, the American League has a commanding 17-8 lead in the overall team competition. Jose Bautista, one of the popular picks to win, is coming up next.
8:51 p.m.: Robinson Cano makes everything he does on a baseball field look easy. We just found out what he can do when it looks like he's trying his damnedest.
He muscled up on a bunch of his eight home runs and put on a terrific show in his first round. Every home run Cano hit traveled further than 400 feet. The second baseman hit one that went 472 feet according to ESPN. It had a "projected average" of 495 feet. What that means, I have no idea, but it still sounds awesome.
Cano sits in second place, but he's no doubt stolen the show for now.
8:37 p.m.: Matt Holliday, also known as the official pick of me, just wrapped up his first round with five home runs.
Holliday picked up a couple of big ones late, including one 435-foot blast to left that should have sent everyone within five rows of its landing spot scurrying.
The longest home run of the night still belongs to Gonzalez, though, who capped his nine-homer round with a 447-foot blast.
8:28 p.m.: Things looked a little ominous for Adrian Gonzalez when he hit a dribbler back to the mound on his first swing. He figured it out after that, though.
Gonzalez crushed nine home runs, including a couple of absolute tape-measure blasts.
Here in Boston, we've seen how good of a hitter Adrian Gonzalez is with how he sprays the ball around the ballpark, and how he hits so well for average. And sure, he's shown his power in the first half of the season, but his first round was something else. The ball was just jumping off of his bat.
8:20 p.m.: David Ortiz is calling an audible at the line of scrimmage. Instead of going with Robinson Cano to lead off, Big Papi has tabbed teammate Adrian Gonzalez as his leadoff hitter.
So Gonzalez will get things under way at some point, presumably after ESPN finishes showing highlights of Sam Fuld.
Wait. What?
8:15 p.m.: Chris Berman is done having awkward moments at home plate now. We're just moments from getting started. Hopefully?
8:00 p.m.: We're just moments away from blast off, so now is a good time to do the prediction thing.
Going to go with Matt Holliday. Why am I going with Matt Holliday? No reason. These things are unpredictable, so there's no rhyme or reason to that.
Jose Bautista seems like a good pick, but he just swings so darn hard that he may be too tired.
Regardless, I've got Prince Fielder hitting the longest home run of the night. That, I feel confident saying.
Oh, and we're taking the AL East team to beat the NL Central and Matt Kemp team in the overall competition.
7:45 p.m.: Padres closer Heath Bell just tweeted "Hi." So it's officially a party.
7:35 p.m.: David Ortiz just told ESPN's Buster Olney that he may have Robinson Cano's father pitch to him.
Apparently even the best rivalry in sports takes a few days off for the All-Star break.
7:10 p.m.: My esteemed colleague, Ricky Doyle, just put the finishing touches on a piece explaining why he thinks Wily Mo Pena should be in this year's home run derby. So you can check that out while you wait for the long balls to fly.
7:00 p.m.: This, from the "What It's Worth Department":
According to ESPN's Home Run Tracker, only Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati averages more home runs per game in the NL than Chase Field.
The venue formerly known as Bank One Ballpark averages 2.4 round-trippers per game, and that is the fifth most in all of baseball.
Long story short: the ball will go over the fence a lot on Monday night.
6:50 p.m.: Pirates reliever Joel Hanrahan, one of the various players taking part in MLB's social media revolution for the derby, just tweeted that he thinks Rickie Weeks is the "early pick" after batting practice, but the Pittsburgh closer is sticking with his pick of Matt Kemp.
Both seem like long shots, but what do I know?
5:30 p.m.: So, with the Derby just about three hours away, who is the smart money on this year? According to Bodog,Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista is Monday night's favorite.
Check out the full odds below.
Jose Bautista: 9-to-4
Prince Fielder: 7-to-2
David Ortiz: 9-to-2
Matt Holliday: 19-to-4
Adrian Gonzalez: 11-to-2
Matt Kemp: 15-to-2
Robinson Cano: 10-to-1
Rickie Weeks: 14-to-1
So there they are. Do what you will with that information.
8 a.m.: Big Papi and his band of slugging American Leaguers will bust out the whooping sticks on Monday night in Arizona in the 2011 Home Run Derby.
AL captain David Ortiz has selected Jose Bautista, Adrian Gonzalez and Robinson Cano to go up against Prince Fielder, who selected Matt Holliday, Matt Kemp and Rickie Weeks.
Ortiz (@davidortiz), Bautista (@JoeyBats19) and Kemp (@TheRealMattKemp) will be tweeting on their accounts during the course of the event as participants, as will other All-Stars Heath Bell (@HeathBell21), Gio Gonzalez (@GioGonzalez47), Hunter Pence (@HunterPence9), Brandon Phillips (@DatDudeBP), Gaby Sanchez (@GabySanchez15), Justin Upton (@RealJustinUpton), C.J. Wilson (@str8edgeracer), Howie Kendrick (@HKendrick47) and Joel Hanrahan (@hanrahan4457).
