Elly De La Cruz.
In all honesty, I’ve never heard of him, but then again, I’m not the follower of Major League Baseball that I once was in my youth.
But De La Cruz came to my attention yesterday as part of a YouTube short video where the Cincinnati Red star stole three bases in the same at-bat after first singling to get everything started.
On June 6, De La Cruz was called up to the big club from the minors due to an injury to regular Nick Senzel. The next day he hit his first home run. On June 23, he hit for the cycle against Atlanta, the first player to do so since Cesar Cedeno way back in 1972.
And then came July 8, 2023.
With two out in the seventh, De La Cruz singled off Milwaukee reliever Elvis Peguero. Within two pitches to the plate, he had scored.
The steal of second was a regular major league baseball play. Peguero didn’t keep De La Cruz close enough to the bag, although he obviously knows of De La Cruz’s potential for base theft. Predictably, as Peguero dealt to the plate, De La Cruz took off for second with such a jump that the Milwaukee catcher didn’t even come out of his crouch, but rather threw from his knees. Despite that, he dealt an almost perfect one-bounce throw to the first base side of second and in the perfect spot for a tag, but De La Cruz had already arrived via a head-first slide.
DLC dusted himself off, re-positioned his helmet, and took a look around. While the defence repositioned, the third baseman Brian Anderson came off the bag to a position more or less where a deep shortstop might play, and DLC saw that the bag was unattended at third. Next pitch he was gone again, this time to third, arriving standing up since there was no throw, owing to the fact that there was nobody there to throw to, Anderson standing some 40 feet away. Wow, talk about some heads-up base running.
Peguero was somewhat disgusted at this turn of events. He took the throw from the catcher in front of the mound, pivoted towards the hill, and momentarily turned his back on DLC who had rounded third since nobody was there to hold him close to the bag. Anderson had not moved in all this time. De La Cruz took note and started to edge in towards home, again nobody holding him. And then he broke for the plate as the stunned Peguero tried to recover with a throw home, but too late. The game was now tied, 6-6, just like that.
Ouch!
To be fair, it certainly appears that De La Cruz is a phenom in the making, and while not knowing of him before, I’ll be knowing him well into the future because he appears to be an all-tool player. That said, this was pretty shoddy defence, except for perhaps catcher William Contreras, who had the misfortune of watching it all happen right in front of him while his teammates got caught napping, twice. He made a valiant throw to second after DLC got a great jump, and had to eat the ball as Anderson failed to cover third, twice. Anderson, in fairness, was probably positioned by a defensive coach, and, if that’s the case, a lot of folks responsible for the Brewer’s infield defence are going to be watching a lot of uncomfortable video in the next few days.
It was, I believe, the fourth, maybe fifth consecutive game that De La Cruz had pilfered a base, let alone three in the same at-bat. It would seem that opposing teams may want to have a look at how they defend this guy on the bases, because he’s a solid enough hitter to guarantee that he’ll be on the bases a lot. How teams and coaching staffs deal with him will be an interesting story on its own.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 