Jordan Walker stunned the hometown crowd. The St. Louis Cardinals outfielder ran off four straight home runs on his final swings to beat the Philadelphia Phillies‘ Kyle Schwarber in a thrilling 12-11 finish in the final round Monday night, winning the 2026 T-Mobile Home Run Derby at Citizens Bank Park and denying Philadelphia’s favorite son a title in his own ballpark.
Walker looked finished when he stood at eight homers with his last swing approaching. Instead, he caught fire, and St. Louis has its first Home Run Derby champion in franchise history.
“I just came in here trying to be easy and swing as easy as I can,” Walker said after the win, in a Netflix interview.
Walker’s Stunning Finish Shocks Citizens Bank Park
Schwarber hit first in the championship round and set what looked like an imposing bar, needing just 16 swings to reach 11 home runs. He earned a bonus swing by going deep on his 15th swing off the derby’s magenta ball, then closed out his round to a loud ovation from the sellout crowd, according to MLB.com.
Walker had a mountain to climb and appeared to be running out of room, sitting at eight home runs with his allotted swings dwindling. He needed four consecutive home runs including one in his final official swing to earn the bonus. He got those four home runs in a row to close it out, stunning Schwarber and the fans who’d spent the night booing every non-Phillie in the building.
The finish capped a night that began with Schwarber squeezing into the semifinals with 10 homers on 20 swings in the first round, a total that barely got him into the top four. His teammate Bryce Harper, the 2018 champion, finished one round behind him with eight homers, ending Philadelphia’s hopes of an all-hometown final.
Schwarber’s semifinal against Willson Contreras of the Boston Red Sox ran tighter than the final numbers suggest. The Philadelphia hero found nothing on his first five swings before ripping off four home runs in a row, a stretch kick-started by a 109 mph, 438-foot blast, according to MLB.com. He finished the round with nine, edging Contreras, who had eight homers and just one swing remaining when his night ended.
Walker, meanwhile, matched Contreras with 13 homers in the first round before eliminating Junior Caminero in the other semifinal to reach the final. Munetaka Murakami, Jac Caglianone and Ben Rice were the other three sluggers eliminated in the opening round, finishing with nine, eight and seven homers respectively.
First Derby Title for St. Louis
The win makes Walker the first Cardinal to claim the Home Run Derby crown in the event’s 41-year history, and St. Louis’ first participant to even reach the finals. It’s a signature moment in a breakout season that had already earned the 24-year-old his first All-Star selection, with a .294 batting average and a National League-leading 74 RBIs heading into the break.
For Schwarber, it’s a second runner-up finish in a derby final, adding to the loss he suffered to Harper in 2018 when he was still with the Chicago Cubs. He’d hoped a big night in front of his own fans, in the city where he’s spent parts of five seasons, would turn out differently.
“It’ll be amazing,” Schwarber said before the event, describing what it would mean to compete in front of his home fans. “From the previous derbys I’ve done, I’ve been able to watch and you see the home guy kind of step out there and you see how much the crowd gets behind them,” Schwarber told ESPN ahead of the derby. The crowd got behind him all night. It just wasn’t enough.
Cardinals’ Jordan Walker Wins Home Run Derby in Stunning Upset