Elly De La Cruz can do issues that different human beings can’t do on a baseball discipline. But it surely’s not only one factor, it’s so many issues. On Monday evening within the sequence opener in opposition to the Milwaukee Brewers the Cincinnati Reds shortstop confirmed off two of these issues that make him a special sort of man. De La Cruz hit a 450-foot residence run from the left facet of the plate within the fifth inning. Two innings later he homered from the best facet of the plate – however this one didn’t go away the ballpark. Nope, this one obtained by a diving heart fielder and rolled to the warning observe whereas De La Cruz raced across the bases and slid head first to the plate for an inside-the-park homer.
These two issues weren’t the one issues that he did on the evening that made it particular, however we’ll get to among the different stuff afterward. Let’s first deal with the house runs.
Jason Bernard of MLB.com’s analysis division says that Elly De La Cruz is the primary participant within the Statcast Period (the beginning of 2015) to have each a 450-foot residence run and an inside-the-park residence run in the identical recreation.
In 2023 De La Cruz was the quickest participant within the huge leagues. To place into perspective how briskly he was transferring on his inside-the-park residence run, right here’s a freeze body on the level when Brewers proper fielder Jackson Chourio picked up the baseball in heart….. word the place De La Cruz was on the infield:
When the sport was over, Elly De La Cruz went 3-4 with a steal, two residence runs, and 4 runs scored. That helped put his identify in a couple of extra spots within the document books. He joined Pete Rose and Javier Valentin as the one Reds gamers to homer from each side of the plate in the identical recreation.
These residence runs from both sides of the plate, coupled with the truth that one was an inside-the-park residence run, the truth that he stole a base, and that he scored 4 runs all in the identical recreation make him the primary participant in Main League Baseball historical past to ever have such a recreation according to OptaSTATS.
Elly De La Cruz isn’t excellent. However he’s a unicorn. There’s nobody like him in baseball. There’s a saying about baseball and the way you’ve got an opportunity to see one thing you’ve by no means seen earlier than each evening, however that very same factor appears to use to the Reds 22-year-old shortstop. He hasn’t even been within the huge leagues for a full 12 months and he’s had a number of video games the place he’s performed a number of issues nobody has ever performed earlier than.
