Elly De La Cruz is showing he's much more than a power hitter for Cincinnati Reds
From Cincinnati Reds infielder Elly De La Cruz’s first day in the big leagues, opposing teams pitched around him.
The generational prospect who can hit 500-foot homers rarely sees a high fastball. There’s a tension when De La Cruz is at the plate because pitchers know he can crush the hardest line drive of the MLB season at any moment. Pitchers pepper him with changeups and sliders they hope clip the outside corner or get De La Cruz to chase the pitch.
De La Cruz recognized this quickly, and he made an adjustment after his first week in the big leagues. Now, the 21-year-old isn’t trying to hit for power. But because De La Cruz is so gifted, he’s still hitting the ball harder than almost anyone in baseball.
“If it was (up to) me, I’d hit a home run every day,” De La Cruz said via interpreter Jorge Merlos. “Obviously you can’t do that every day. We’re trying to make a good swing on it, hit the ball really hard and see where it lands. I’m just trying to hit it as well as I can.”
De La Cruz focusing on every pitch as he learns in MLB
De La Cruz had three hits in Tuesday’s 8-6 win over the Colorado Rockies, including his second home run of the season. In the third inning, Rockies starting pitcher Noah Davis tried to steal a first-pitch strike and catch the rookie off guard by throwing a high fastball.Recently, De La Cruz has been reminding himself about the importance of staying focused for every pitch. When he hits off the pitching machine during batting practice, he simulates a game-like situation and looks for the pitches that he can hit the best.
De La Cruz knows he has to be ready for the high fastball because he can change a game when he gets that pitch. Against Davis, De La Cruz hit a high fly ball that carried over the left field fence.
“He doesn’t go up there trying to hit home runs,” Reds manager David Bell said. “He does go up there hunting a good pitch to hit and trying to get the bat on the ball.”
Entering Tuesday’s game, just 20% of the pitches De La Cruz had seen in MLB were in the upper-half of the plate. He faces a steady pattern of off-speed pitches low-and-away, especially early in games.
“You get up here (to MLB) and the other team is trying to figure you out,” Reds outfielder TJ Friedl said. “They've got the scouting reports from Triple-A or wherever it may be, so it takes a little bit for them to form how they're going to pitch you. They start (De La Cruz) soft early and see what he's going to chase.”
First off day in MLB brings more offensive production
For a short stretch, De La Cruz was chasing a bit too much. During the Reds’ three-game series in Kansas City, De La Cruz was 0-for-12. He struck out 15 times through his first nine MLB games, and Bell gave De La Cruz a day off to rest during the Reds’ first game in Houston against the Astros.
Following that off-day, De La Cruz had back-to-back two-hit games. After picking up one hit against the Rockies on Monday, De La Cruz had three hits in the second game of the series.
The 21-year-old is hitting .308 through his first 13 big league games.
“When you have power and that kind of ability, it can really allow you to get into better counts, let the ball get deeper and kind of just trust yourself,” Bell said. “I think that’s what he's doing.”
De La Cruz’s home run on Tuesday was a unique swing that only he could turn into a homer. He hit a very high fly ball that looked like a routine fly out.
“I didn’t hit it well,” De La Cruz said. “It looked like there was a chance.”
“I don’t think he got all of that ball,” Bell said.
Because De La Cruz is so strong, he put enough power behind the ball for it to carry over the fence. He doesn’t try to hit homers, but he has so much talent he’ll consistently run into home runs like that one.
It wasn’t even his most impressive moment of Tuesday's game. In the fifth inning, De La Cruz hit a sharp groundball that ricocheted off of Rockies reliever Peter Lambert. De La Cruz’s speed forced Lambert to try to make a quick throw, and that throw sailed over the first baseman. De La Cruz took second, and then he took third when Lambert tried to pick him off and threw the ball away again.
“When you’re trying to make contact, you’re trying to make different situations on the base paths and make them do the work,” De La Cruz said. “When I got to first base, I was like, alright, let’s keep running. Causing things to happen on the field is what you have to do if you’re going to get some type of momentum.”
One year ago, De La Cruz was still in High-A. He made an almost unprecedented quick rise to MLB, and De La Cruz added new dimensions to his game at every level.
He’s still getting better and better as a pure hitter, and games like Tuesday show how quickly De La Cruz is developing.
“He's making unbelievable adjustments game by game,” Friedl said. “It's just a testament to how hard he works and how good of a hitter he is.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds Elly De La Cruz showing more MLB tools
