Home Run Derby Thread: Matt Olson competes as No. 3 seed

The 2021 Home Run Derby is here, and the Oakland A’s have a slugger in the contest.

First baseman Matt Olson is one of eight players competing for the title this year at Coors Field, and he’s ranked as the No. 3 seed among them. They are aligned in a three-round single-elimination bracket, with each pair facing off individually and the winner moving on to the next round.

• No. 1 Shohei Ohtani (LAA) vs. No. 8 Juan Soto (WAS)
• No. 4 Salvador Perez (KCR) vs. No. 5 Pete Alonso (NYM)
• No. 2 Joey Gallo (TEX) vs. No. 7 Trevor Story (COL)
• No. 3 Matt Olson (OAK) vs. No. 6 Trey Mancini (BAL)

Olson will open against Mancini in the first round, and the winner of that matchup will face the winner of Gallo/Story in the second round.

Rules: Hitters get three minutes to take as many swings as they want, plus another 30 seconds of bonus time at the end (in the final round it’s only two minutes). It’s based on a clock, not a number of “outs,” so swinging but not hitting a homer doesn’t count against you. They can take a 45-second timeout during their round. They can earn an extra 30 seconds of bonus time (taking their bonus period up to 60 seconds) if they hit a dinger of at least 475 feet. The tiebreaker is an extra one-minute round, and then a series of three-swing sets until somebody wins.

How To Watch

• Date: Monday, July 12
• Time: 5:00 p.m. PT
• TV (local): ESPN
• Radio (local): 1050 AM