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The All-Star festivities got rolling on Monday evening with the Home Run Derby. A familiar face took the crown.

• It what turned out to be a really great Home Run Derby with multiple mini-storylines, the final came down to Trey Mancini vs. reigning champ Pete Alonso. When Mancini put up an astonishing 22 home runs in the final round, it looked like it very possible that the cancer survivor would take home the hardware in an upset. However, Alonso flipped a switch and took home the win with 23 home runs (despite his BP pitcher hitting him with a pitch).
• Amidst the draft still going on and the All-Star festivities, MLB announced that over the course of the next decade, they are going to donate up to $150 million to the Players’ Alliance. The Players’ Alliance is an organization that seeks to increase the amount of representation and access for Black people to the sport of baseball. Count us among those that say well done, MLB…but there is a lot of work to do.
• The 2021 MLB Draft started up on Sunday and to say that it was a wild round one may be a bit of any understatement as mock drafts were blown up within the first five picks. That started with the number one overall pick as Henry Davis was chosen by the Pittsburgh Pirates in a bit of an upset.
• In devastating news for Braves fans, Ronald Acuna Jr. was injured when trying to make a play on a fly ball. None of the aftermath looked good as Acuna was unable to finish leaving the field and had to be carted off with an apparent knee injury. Sadly, he did not escape major injury this time as it was confirmed that he completely tore his ACL and will miss the remainder of the season.
• For the most part, no one likes watching pitchers hit, especially these days (blame Manfred for it continuing to be a thing. What is USUALLY worse is when relief pitchers are forced to hit because they are trying to give their team some innings in a blowout. USUALLY it goes very poorly. Well, Daniel Camarena’s at-bat against Max Scherzer was very unusual as not only did he get a hit, but he connected for the first grand slam hit by a reliever in the league since 1985.
• Trevor Bauer remains under