Martinez Outlasts Exhausted Cloud, Wins Home Run Derby

By KYLE KEOUGH
Double Day AP


Joaquin Martinez had just enough left in his recent power surge to stave off Les Cloud and the other Derby contestants.

Baltimore's Martinez, who is already on the verge of setting a career-high in home runs with 33 (one shy of his personal best), kick-started the All-Star festivities by surviving a field of some of the best power hitters in the game and emerging as the unexpected winner of the third annual Home Run Derby, held in the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

Last season, it was Blade Stevenson's hot bat that led the way for some ridiculous tallies. This season, though, the competition started slow and heated up in the second round, when players started to find their stroke.

Perhaps the odds-on favorite entering the competition was Philip Maxwell, the ML leader in home runs with 35 and the most prolific home run hitter in the competition. Albuquerque's Maxwell, the reigning Most Valuable Player, struggled at the plate, sending a mere three balls outside of the park.

Joining Maxwell in opening-round jitters was Julian Julio, who opened the competition after making the All-Star team in his first full ML season. The Louisville product blasted five home runs but was on the outside looking in when the first round totals were decided.

Derek McDermott set a good pace with two home runs and only one out, but proceeded to squander away the next nine outs and settle for the low score of the competition. The fourth player to be eliminated in the first round Julian Ibanez: Ibanez, representing Wichita, hit six home runs but did not advance to the second round, even though he registered a 532-foot bomb down the rightfield line that was the evening's longest home run.

Advancing were Martinez, Boston sluggers Philip Parrish and and Oswaldo Navarro, and Louisville's Les Cloud. Parrish and Oswaldo, hitting back to back, fizzled with five and four home runs respectively; Les Cloud added 8 more homers to his first-round total, while Martinez again was the round leader with 9.

In the finals, a visibly tiring Cloud couldn't quite muster the strength to reach the wall anymore, with the majority of his hits falling just short. With three outs, Martinez sealed the Home Run Derby crown on a 415-footer to straightaway center field and defeated the ML newcomer in Cloud.

The finals were both the coming-out party for star-in-the-making Les Cloud and validation for Joaquin Martinez's resurgent season. Martinez led the way with 26 total home runs, followed by Cloud with 20. Other semi-finalists Navarro and Parrish hit 15 and 13; first-round participants Ibanez (6), Julio (5), Maxwell (3), and McDermott (2) rounded out the competition.