Netflix on Monday night streamed its first MLB Home Run Derby, and the “best part of the streamer’s presentation Monday was its main booth, which worked out quite well, given how the event ended,” according to Andrew Marchand of THE ATHLETIC. Matt Vasgersian is a “true play-by-player” while former MLBer Hunter Pence was “so passionate the whole night” and former MLBer Anthony Rizzo was “comfortable on TV, though he needed to calm down a little about what the event means to the sport.” But in the most crucial moment during the final round, the broadcast was “in Vasgersian’s and his analysts’ hands.” When Cardinals RF Jordan Walker delivered his “incredible come-from-behind victory, the camera stayed on a stoic” Phillies DH Kyle Schwarber, and the mics “caught the fans’ negative reaction to each long ball and Vasgersian hit the calls.” After winning in “dramatic fashion,” Walker joined Netflix host Elle Duncan, Rizzo, and former MLBers Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols on the streamer’s lounge-like set on the third-base line. Walker’s whole family “gathered around the lounge.” Pujols, who “has shown potential” as a broadcaster, “brought Walker’s grandma into the conversation.” It gave a “nice touch, focusing on the accomplishment, not the sideshows” (THE ATHLETIC, 7/14).
FORMAT WIN: YAHOO SPORTS’ Jake Mintz wrote the night also “proved to be a massive win for MLB’s new Home Run Derby format.” The Derby clock, in place since 2015, was switched in favor of a swing-based format: 20 in the first round and 15 in the semifinals and finals. However, a player who “went deep on his final opportunity could continue swinging for the fences.” The thought was “that if a guy caught fire and crawled his way out of a massive deficit, it would make for phenomenal theater.” The new format “was looking like something of a dud” until Walker “more than delivered, cranking four stunning blasts on his final swing” to win the event (YAHOO SPORTS, 7/13).
NEW LOOK: USA TODAY’s Kristie Ackert wrote through the first two rounds, “not one of the 12 hitters homered on the T-Mobile Magenta Ball” -- a new ball this year with “white and magenta with red stiches” that “comes into play on the final swing of each round.” Netflix analysts “kept coming back to one theory: The two different colors made it harder for the players to track” the ball in the air. It was “darker on one side, meaning it wouldn’t show up as well as regular white baseballs against the batter’s eye in center field.” Hitters “use the red stiches against the white leather to track the pitches as they are released from the pitchers” (USA TODAY, 7/13).
