Nothing Petty about Midway Classic derby

Kyle Petty was a senior when he signed as a 23rd-round pick out of the California University of Pennsylvania (yes, in California, Pennsylvania, he’s quick to point out). He was 24 years old the first time the Mariners sent him to Bakersfield. On Monday, the 6-foot-5, 215-pound first baseman was launching baseballs off an aircraft carrier into the Pacific Ocean.

Not hard to see why Petty continued to wave for more pitches even after blasting his way to the Midway Classic home run derby title with five of his first six swings.

“These people spend their time and money to come out here and you want to put on a show for them,” Petty said after an eight-homer round – tops by anyone all afternoon – put him over the top in the final round. “You don’t want to cut it short. … It was an awesome setting. Not many chances where you get to hit a baseball and it disappears into an ocean.

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USS Midway Home Run Derby

“You just want to embrace it and take it all in.”

The 25-year-old Petty matched Frederick’s Aderlin Rodriguez’s final round with home runs on his first four swings, popped up a pitch and then sent one more majestic bomb beyond the pink buoys sitting 350 feet away from the cage on the deck of the USS Midway. The Mariners’ farm hand then deposited baseballs into the San Diego Bay on three of his next four swings, upping his derby total to 22 homers in a three-round event.

The wind flapping off the front of the ship wasn’t all that difficult to cut through, either.

“I thought it was going to be,” Petty said, “but if you stayed in the center of the field it carried a little bit.”

Sitting a career-high 10 home runs for the Bakersfield Blaze, Petty blasted six home runs in an opening round that pitted eight minor league all-stars – four from the California League and four from the Carolina League – in a rare locale for the home run derby leading into Tuesday’s California/Carolina League All-Star Game in Lake Elsinore.

AC/DC blared during the final round, attendees snacked on all-you-can-eat sliders, wings and drinks – and occasionally ducked from balls ricocheting off the fencing – as dozens of jets skis, kayaks, boats and swimmers scurried to fish baseballs out of the bay. There was even a guy waving a Lake Elsinore Storm flag as he propelled himself off the ocean’s surface on a wave jet.

Just another day in minor league baseball?

Not exactly.

“I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’d thought they’d be hitting off this,” said San Jose’s Chris Shaw, a 2015 Giants’ first-rounder who has 26 homers in his first 110 games as a pro out of Boston College. “It was a cool experience.”

Shaw (2), the Indians’ Yu-Cheng Chang (3), the Nationals’ Drew Ward (3) and the Rangers’ Travis Demeritte (5) bowed out after the first round and Indians’ top prospect Bobby Bradley (5) and the Diamondbacks’ Dawel Lugo (6) fizzled in the semifinals, the latter after Petty hit two of his three overtime swings beyond the buoys. Lugo hit one.

In the final, the Orioles’ Rodriguez – who hit five homers in the first round and six in the semis – settled for four homers on 10 swings to set the bar for Petty.

With his father in town from New Jersey for all-star festivities and his buddies texting him between rounds, the Stewartsville, Pa., native cruised right past Rodriguez in the latest highlight of a season in which he’s hitting .327/.399/.509 with 10 homers and 43 RBIs.

Almost made it look easy, too.

It wasn’t.

“That’s a lot of swings at one time,” Petty said afterward while still trying to catch his breath. “I said to the guys I’ve never taken 10 swings 100 percent like that right in a row.

“It was a little winding.”