The kids who flood the outfield at MLB’s Home Run Derby have one job and one job only: Catch the non-homers.
On Monday, one of them went a little too above and beyond.
In the final between Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh and Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero, the latter slugger hit what appeared to be his sixth homer of the timed portion — until someone with a glove jumped and hauled the ball in. It was unclear in the moment if the ball would have been a homer, but it clearly had potential.
The umpires reviewed the play during Caminero’s mid-round timeout and opted to give the 22-year-old the home run.
The play fortunately ended up not mattering. Caminero looked like he had a chance to catch Raleigh’s 18 homers in the final, but he slowed down toward the end of his timed portion and added only one dinger in the bonus round, leaving him with 15 and making Raleigh the first catcher to win the event.
Had Caminero ended up with 18 or 19 homers, this could’ve been a very different story.
After the event, The Athletic identified the kid as Sam Musterer, the 17-year-old son of an official scorer for the Atlanta Braves. Musterer’s explanation for what happened:
“I wasn’t quite aware of where I was on the fence,” Musterer said. “I thought the fence was a little taller there. I kind of just reached up and grabbed it.”
Caminero defended Musterer, via MLB.com’s Mark Bowman:
“Things happen,” Caminero said through an interpreter. “He was enjoying himself out there too. He did something he thought was fun and it was fine.”
Meanwhile, Raleigh joked “I paid him off” while the Mariners had some fun with him:
That wasn’t the only controversy involving Raleigh over the course of the night. He looked great in the final and semifinal, in which he beat Pirates slugger Oneil Cruz, but the first round was a different story.
Hitting seventh in an eight-player field, Raleigh posted 17 homers, which put him in a tie with Athletics designated hitter Brent Rooker for fourth place in a round in which the top four sluggers advance. The final batter, Matt Olson, finished with 15.
A tie in the first round is decided by which player hit the longest homer, but Raleigh and Rooker were both recorded as hitting a ball 471 feet. It looked like they would have to head to a swing-off, but then word came from, well, somewhere, and it was established that Raleigh’s homer actually traveled 470.61 feet, while Rooker’s went 470.53 feet, via Statcast.
It’s not exactly the best look when someone in an office tells a national audience that one guy — who happens to be the event’s marquee player — beat the other by a difference of literally an inch, but that’s how Raleigh made it out of the first round alongside Caminero, Cruz and Twins star Byron Buxton.
Between the robbery, the review and a 513-foot tank from Cruz, it was an eventful Home Run Derby. And hopefully a lesson learned for a certain Atlanta youngster.
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