{"id":166330,"date":"2025-07-10T18:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T18:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/166330\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T18:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T18:11:11","slug":"another-al-west-slugger-joins-cal-raleigh-in-home-run-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/166330\/","title":{"rendered":"Another AL West slugger joins Cal Raleigh in Home Run Derby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Athletics slugger Brent Rooker is adding his name to the list of Home Run Derby participants.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/bump-and-stacy\/seattle-mariners-former-gm-confident-2nd-half-surge-julio-rodriguez\/1816132\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Former GM \u2018confident\u2019 in a second-half surge from Julio Rodr\u00edguez<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rooker announced Thursday that he\u2019s participating in the event, which takes place Monday in Atlanta. He will become the first Athletics player in the Home Run Derby since Matt Olson in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The other announced participants so far are Seattle Mariners catcher and MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh, Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr., Minnesota Twins outfielder Byron Buxton, Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero, Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Oneil Cruz, and Washington Nationals outfielder James Wood.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCompeting in the Home Run Derby has always been a dream of mine,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/brent_rooker25\/reel\/DL7wz8Qxc46\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Rooker said in an Instagram post<\/a>. \u201cCan\u2019t wait to make it happen next week in Atlanta! See ya there!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/mlb\/seattle-mariners\/watch-cal-raleigh-unseats-griffey-in-mariners-record-books\/1816021\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cal Raleigh unseats Griffey in Mariners\u2019 HR record books<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rooker, 30, entered Thursday with a .270 batting average, 19 homers and 50 RBIs, putting him on pace for a third straight season of at least 30 homers. He went deep 30 times in 2023 and had 39 homers in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>His 58 homers since the start of the 2024 season rank him third among all American League players.<\/p>\n<p>The only A\u2019s to win the Derby were Mark McGwire in 1992 and Yoenis C\u00e9spedes in 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/brock-and-salk\/seattle-mariners-top-competition-for-suarez-trade-it-could-be-the-yankees\/1816155\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">If Yankees are the competition for Eugenio Su\u00e1rez trade, Mariners can win<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/newsletters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SeattleSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"mobile-signup\"\/>\t&#13;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SeattleSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"desktop-signup\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Athletics slugger Brent Rooker is adding his name to the list of Home&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,220,620,4,221,216,619,65,3235,185,219,218,217],"class_list":{"0":"post-166330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-home","10":"tag-mariners","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mynorthwest-com","13":"tag-mynorthwest-com-seattle-news","14":"tag-seattle","15":"tag-seattle-mariners","16":"tag-seattlemariners","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-talk-and-community","19":"tag-traffic","20":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114830291020182226","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}