Home Run Derby 2017: Results, updates, and highlights from Aaron Judge’s victory

10:03 p.m. ET: Aaron Judge has made it to the finals after vanquishing fellow homer-happy rookie Cody Bellinger in the semis, and he’s set to face Miguel Sano, who has been slow but steady in his first two rounds. That might help Sano out, since he’s not gassed, but also, Judge was hitting homers so frequently in round two that he finished early just like his next opponent.

Sano leads things off in the finals, and watched a whole bunch of pitches go by waiting for one he could crush.

As an aside, living in the future is pretty fun sometimes:

With three minutes to go, Sano has just the one homer. The announcers are talking it up like Sano has given up on the idea of being able to defeat Aaron Judge, who Jessica Mendoza referred to as The Beast. Watch out, Judge, Brock Lesnar will come for his nickname if you aren’t careful.

Sano finally got his second dinger at 2:25, and followed it up with his third and fourth. Homer two also went over 440 feet, getting him halfway to bonus time he is very likely going to need given his slow start in the final round.

Timeout two came with four homers and 1:25 to go on the clock, and Sano is looking like he is tired of swinging his large bat at baseballs after a couple of hours of doing so. He had only swung 10 times to this point (per Mendoza), as he’s waiting for the perfect pitch and really not getting it often enough.

Sano picked up the pace as time started to run out, including a shot that was basically a golf swing, and he ended up with 10 before time expired — the last of those was over 440 feet, too, getting him 30 seconds of bonus time.

Bonus time ended up being a disappointment, with the only ball that got to the stands ending up there because someone threw a ball to a fan. Ten is the number to beat, Aaron Judge.

Please enjoy your intermission entertainment, provided by Grant Brisbee:

10:19 p.m. ET: Aaron Judge hit homers on his first three swings and then four in five swings and also already got the 30-second bonus for distance and hit another two homers before I finished this sentence.

With 2:30 left, Judge is now just one behind Sano. He’s, uh, he’s probably going to get those.

And with 1:53 left, Judge gets homer 11 and becomes your 2017 Home Run Derby champ!

9:26 p.m. ET: Here we are in round two, the semifinals. Last year’s champ, Giancarlo Stanton, has been eliminated, but Miguel Sano, Gary Sanchez, Cody Bellinger, and Aaron Judge all advanced. Judge, at 25, is the oldest one of this group. Baseball’s youthful talent is just ridiculous.

Gary Sanchez vs. Miguel Sano starts off round two. Sanchez doesn’t look quite as powerful here, but that’s probably because the Derby is exhausting as hell. With 2:30 left to go, Sanchez was at three homers, but one was over 440 feet, so he’s got that going for him.

And homer four earned him those precious 30 seconds before he called timeout with 2:04 to go. He never picked up the pace much, but nine homers in four minutes is a good start, and he’s still got those 30 bonus seconds to work with.

And bonus time gets Sanchez just one more, but he got to double-digits, which could be enough since Sano barely cleared that in round one.

9:41 p.m. ET: Sano gets off to a good start, with five homers in 2:30 seconds, and enough of them long enough to earn him bonus time already. Sano called timeout with just under two minutes on the clock and six homers on the board, four behind Sanchez.

Sano is looking like he might not even need all of the time he’s got left, as he hit nine with 1:15 to go in regulation. And he tied Sanchez at 10 with 54 seconds, then got 11 by 43 seconds. That cuts his round short -- you don’t want to waste swings, you know. Maybe Sano has the right idea, not going all out but winning anyway.

9:45 p.m. ET: It’s a battle between potential Rookie of the Year winners, as Cody Bellinger takes on Aaron Judge in the semifinals for the right to face Sano in the finals.

By the way, Aaron Judge’s first-round homers were visualized in a chart, and that chart... is good. Meanwhile, Cody Bellinger has eight homers with 1:20 to go, but he has yet to hit a single 440 foot homer that will earn him the bonus time he might very well need against Judge.

He’d finish with a dozen and no bonus time, and now it’s Judge’s turn to earn a shot at Sano.

9:57 p.m. ET: Aaron Judge hit five homers in his first minute, picking up one of the bonus time shots he needs with a 474 footer. He called timeout with 2:48 to go and in need of at least seven more.

Look at this goofy graphic the Dodgers made for Bellinger.

Baseball is so corny and good and also Aaron Judge has 10 homers with two minutes to go. Number 10 went 504 feet, and number 11 went 513. 513! Judge tied it up with number 12 with 1:09 to go, and number 13 followed up right after at 507 feet.

Aaron Judge you ridiculous large human, you are in the finals.

Welcome to the 2017 Home Run Derby, where there should be dingers aplenty. We’re kicking things off with an introduction brought to you by Miami’s DJ Irie, who played some very Miami sounds while the eight competitors stood on a stage on the mound.

8:21 p.m. ET: Miguel Sano started things off, with his first homer hit with 3:30 left in his round, off former MLB slugger Fernando Tatis. It took him some time to get going, but he hit his third a minute later, and earned the 30-second bonus since that ball traveled 470 feet.

The fifth seed in the Derby focused on pulling the ball, mixed some rockets with some lasers -- these are technical terms, you know -- and went on a tear with under a minute left to finish with 11 dingers, the ninth of which hit the Home Run Sculpture.

Bad news, y’all: the homer sculpture won’t be going off during the Derby, because it takes far too long to setup after each explosion of sound and spinning.

8:27 p.m. ET: Royals’ third baseman Mike Moustakas was Sano’s round one opponent, and the lefty had more of a challenge in front of him given Marlins Park’s dimensions and also the whole Sano having ridiculous power thing. Moose has a career-high in homers this season already, though, so don’t discount him.

Moustakas finally started mashing as the clock approached two minutes, going from one to seven in a hurry before calling timeout to get a breather. He didn’t have much to offer after that timeout, though, as Moustakas finished with 10, failing to get any of his liners over the fence the rest of the way out. As his longest shot was 442 feet, he didn’t earn the bonus time to put him over the edge, so it’s Sano who advances.

8:33 p.m. ET: One of two Yankees, Gary Sanchez, got going immediately with a 460 foot shot. There’s a lot of pressure on Sanchez to succeed here, too, given Logan Morrison publicly pouted about being left off the Derby roster in favor of him.

Yeah Sanchez probably doesn’t need to worry about that too much since with 1:40 left he had 10 dingers. He earned his 30 seconds of bonus time, and took the overall lead with 12 dingers before he even bothered to call a timeout.

Dear lord Sanchez just hit a homer 483 feet that hit the back wall of the stadium in left lolol

Sanchez shot 15 over the wall before his 30 seconds of bonus time, and then notched another two dingers with those extra ticks of the clock to finish at 17. Opposing Sanchez, though, is defending champion and professional beef Giancarlo Stanton, so we’ll see if this figure holds up for more than a few minutes.

8:42 p.m. ET: It took until there were under three minutes on the clock for Giancarlo Stanton to get going, but once he did, he went DEEP with a 496 footer. 496!

Stanton does not wait for his balls to land before hitting the next one, and it makes for some homers that start before the last one lands. He caught fire just before the two-minute mark, jumping to eight shortly after his timeout, and number nine earned him his 30 seconds of bonus time, which he will definitely need to catch Sanchez.

Why can’t we have Stanton and Sanchez advance who booked this bracket what is wrong with you

Giancarlo started to look real tired as time winded down, but picked up two more to give him 15 total — 10 of them over 440 feet — before his 30 seconds of bonus time began.

Stanton used his break to get the crowd behind him, needing two to tie Sanchez and three to eliminate him. He picked up the first with 10 seconds left, but that was it, and the defending champ is eliminated!

8:50 p.m. ET: Charlie Blackmon and his beard are up next, with the Rockies’ center fielder having quite the challenge in front of him: one of two super powered rookie sluggers, Cody Bellinger, is his round one opponent.

Blackmon didn’t have trouble getting homers early, swatting three before the clock ran down to three minutes, but none of them had much distance on them — he might have trouble getting the two 440-plus-foot shots he needs for the bonus time.

He’s certainly hitting plenty in terms of quantity, even if they aren’t traveling all Stanton-like, as Blackmon had 10 dingers before calling timeout with 1:09 left.

Blackmon came back from the timeout hitting balls real short of the wall, but got back into the swing of things with 30 seconds left and smacked another four before time elapsed to give him 14. Not a single one over 440 feet, so no bonus time as predicted, but it’s hard to be upset about 14.

8:55 p.m. ET: Rookie Cody Bellinger, who only stuck around on the Dodgers because injuries kept a space on the roster for him and his ridiculous rookie season, is next up.

It took Bellinger three homers to get one over 440 feet. He’s got a secret weapon on his side, though: former MLB player Clay Bellinger, his dad, is the one pitching to him. They should probably speed up a little, though, as Bellinger is 10 behind Blackmon with 2:30 left on the clock.

Cody called timeout with 1:50 left on the clock, eight behind Blackmon. The timeout seems to have worked, as Bellinger came out swinging and got to 11 with 45 seconds to go.

Oh WOW. Bellinger’s 13th homer went 440 feet, giving him the 30 seconds of bonus time he needed to try to tie Blackmon!

His first swing in bonus time got him homer 14, but then he hit two real, real high balls in a row that slowed him down. That’s okay, though, because Bellinger hit a bomb with just a few seconds left to eliminate Blackmon and advance to the next round.

9:05 p.m. ET: It’s time for the last match-up of round one: the Marlins’ Justin Bour vs. the presumed favorite in this post-Stanton world we’re living in, Aaron Judge.

Local favorite Bour goes first, and I promise I’ll do my best to avoid making puns with his name. That’s how you know it’s Marc writing the live results and not Eric. Eric would have already made like seven impressive puns with Bour’s name by now.

Justin Bour is a big boy. He’s not Aaron Judge big, but he’s 6-foot-3, 265, so he’s still a large, beefy human being.

Grant does not have my restraint:

Bour is just hitting dinger after dinger, collecting his 30 seconds of bonus time with homer 13, and then following that up with 14, 15, and 16 on consecutive pitches. Oh, and 17. Then a little break for a pitch outside, aaaaand number 18. And then 19. Slow down, Justin, I’m trying to keep up here.

Bour finished with 19 in regulation, so let’s see what he does with another 30 seconds. For what it’s worth, he looked tired as time wound down, but I’m sure he can make me look dumb for saying that in a matter of seconds.

Yuuup, he hit three in those 30 seconds to take the individual round lead with 22. That’s a lot for Aaron Judge to pass, but also, it’s Aaron Judge, so he just might.

9:18 p.m. ET: Aaron Judge steps in to counter Justin Bour and reclaim his place as baseball’s largest dinger-swatting son. Judge went deep seven times by the 2:30 mark, including one at 501 feet that topped Stanton’s earlier shot. You will not be shocked to know he earned his bonus 30 seconds.

Judge hit the roof and they called it a homer because how could you not? [Roof update: they subtracted the roof one from his total at the end, but it didn’t matter.] Also, he has 19 as I type this with 32 seconds left and 30 seconds of bonus time to go. And 22 at the end of regulation aaaaand his second swing of bonus time gives him 23, vanquishing Justin Bour.

Miami Marlins outfielder Giancarlo Stanton is the favorite to defend his title at the 2017 Home Run Derby, with seven other sluggers challenging him at his home park.

Stanton hit 61 home runs in three rounds to win the 2016 Derby at Petco Park in San Diego, setting a Home Run Derby record in the process. He’s the favorite this year — Bovada has Stanton installed as a 7/5 favorite — but there are several young challengers to the throne.

Aaron Judge already broke Joe DiMaggio’s 81-year-old New York Yankees rookie record for home runs in a season, and there are still 76 games remaining. His teammate Gary Sanchez tied a record last season for fastest to 20 career home runs in major league history, only to have Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Cody Bellinger break it this season.

The single-elimination, bracketed format has proven quite exciting over the last three years, and with the contestants in this year’s field, that home run contraption beyond the center field wall in Miami figures to be quite busy all of Monday night.

Other than Stanton, the other seven contestants are first-timers in the Home Run Derby. Stanton got the top seed by virtue of being the defending champion, and the others were ordered by home run totals through July 4.

This tournament is a single-elimination format, with each duo facing off for four minutes each round. The higher seed bats second in each matchup.

The timer in each round starts when the first pitch is thrown, and a subsequent pitch can’t be thrown until the batted ball is caught, ruled a home run, hits the ground, or leaves the field in foul territory.

In the first two rounds, each batter is allowed one 45-second timeout. In the finals both batters are allowed two timeouts, one of 45 seconds and the other 30 seconds.

If a player hits two home runs of at least 440 feet during the round, he will be awarded 30 seconds of bonus time at the end of his round.

The hitter with the highest home run total in each matchup moves on to the next round. If the two hitters are tied, they will engage in a 60-second swing-off. If they are still tied after that, the two hitters engage in successive three-swing swing-offs, which sounds amazing. Sadly, that has not happened yet in previous Home Run Derbies under the new format.

ESPN will televise the Home Run Derby beginning at 8 p.m. ET, with Karl Ravech (in place of Chris Berman), Jessica Mendoza, Mark Teixeira, and Buster Olney on the call. ESPN2 will televise the event in Spanish.

Online streaming is available through WatchESPN.

No. 1 Giancarlo Stanton vs. No. 8 Gary Sanchez
No. 4 Mike Moustakas vs. No. 5 Miguel Sano
No. 2 Aaron Judge vs. No. 7 Justin Bour
No. 3 Cody Bellinger vs. No. 6 Charlie Blackmon