It was the one kind of fourth spot a cleanup hitter wouldn’t want any part of.
Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera finished fourth in the eight-player All-Star Home Run Derby on Monday night.
In the final, Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz beat Florida Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez, 11-5.
Cabrera fell well shy of reaching the final.
“I felt great. I was going to have fun. I took the best swings I could,” he said.
It was mentioned to Cabrera that he faced strong competition.
“It’s all about putting on a good show. The fans had fun. Now they can go home and say, ‘I didn’t waste my time.’ ”
Of the eight contestants, Cabrera went last in the first round of the three-round event. As he got started, he knew he’d advance to the four-man second round if he hit six homers. As he began, the hitter in fourth place was St. Louis’ Matt Holliday, with five homers.
Like all the contestants in each round, Cabrera got to hit as many homers as he could before he made 10 “outs.” An “out” is any ball hit, fair or foul that wasn’t a homer.
It didn’t take long for Cabrera to advance. He’d made only three outs when he hit his sixth homer, sending him past Holliday and into the second round.
But in his remaining seven outs in the first round, Cabrera hit just one home run. That hurt him because the homer totals from the first round carried over to the second round.
As the second round began, the contest stood as Corey Hart with 13, Ramirez with nine, Ortiz with eight and Cabrera with seven.
Then Ortiz went first in the second round and unleashed 13 more homers. Cabrera was in big trouble; he’d need at least 10-12 homers in the second round to have any realistic chance to advance to the final.
At first, it seemed he might make it. Cabrera homered on three of his first four swings in the second round.
And he was getting his batting-practice-speed serves from a tosser familiar to him — Scott Pickens, the Tigers’ bullpen catcher.
However, in his remaining nine outs in the second round, Cabrera hit just two homers. He closed by making five outs without hitting a homer.
He finished with 12 homers, and at that point two contestants already had more, so he was eliminated. He did launch some of the longest homers of the contest, including one into a pool in the centerfield rockpile-waterfall display, and a drive to right-center (a favorite power spot of his) measured at 485 feet.
The totals from the first two rounds didn’t carry over to the Ramirez-Ortiz finals. Ortiz went first and launched 11 homers.
Ramirez didn’t come close to matching him.
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