Remember the title Elly De La Cruz.
De La Cruz is the highest prospect within the Cincinnati Reds’ farm system and a consensus top-10 prospect in all of baseball. After seeing what he did on Thursday evening, it’s not laborious to grasp why.
In the sixth inning of the Louisville Bats’ sport towards the Syracuse Mets, De La Cruz completely demolished a pitch from Joey Lucchesi. It left his bat at 117.7 mph and traveled 450 ft—over the scoreboard in left-center. Yup, you learn that proper—it went OVER the massive scoreboard behind the wall.
You have to see what De La Cruz did to this pitch:
450 ft.
118 MPH off the bat
Over. The. Scoreboard.There are not any phrases to explain @ellylacocoa18 🤯 pic.twitter.com/XgnlEhRaDF
— Louisville Bats (@LouisvilleBats) May 26, 2023
Reds followers are, not surprisingly, clamoring for him to get the decision to the large leagues.
GIVE HIM TO US!
— Tyler Smith (@tsmith0930) May 26, 2023
Should’ve been known as up weeks in the past. Man’s on a tear.
— Wes Powell (@wespowell78) May 26, 2023
Could’ve actually used this energy for the reds immediately man
— uhjosrph (@uhjosrph) May 26, 2023
Other followers had been in awe, too:
Goodness https://t.co/CVpksIb0wA
— Jacob Maurer (@Maurer_Hour) May 26, 2023
Holy… https://t.co/71SHQOiAIc
— Steve Jag (@SteveJag123) May 26, 2023
elly goes to be the face of baseball within the close to future. prepare. https://t.co/Bneqog8fth
— paco (@AllaireMatt) May 26, 2023
Good lord this dude’s a menace 😈 https://t.co/hBoRWiPmoZ
— Graham and a Half (@GrahamAndAHalf) May 26, 2023
But right here’s the actually outstanding factor about De La Cruz: That homer wasn’t even uncommon for him. On May 9, he hit two equally titanic house runs—one which traveled 456 feet with an exit velocity of 116.6 mph and one which left the bat 117.1 mph and traveled 428 feet. And get this: He hit them from reverse sides of the plate. Earlier in that very same sport, he had a double that left the bat at 118.8 mph. Since the introduction of Statcast in 2015, no workforce has had three balls hit that arduous in a single sport, according to MLB’s Sarah Langs.
De La Cruz—a 6’5″ shortstop—was ranked 10th on MLB.com’s preseason list of top prospects after hitting 28 homers last season at High-A and Double A. But his torrid start at Triple A has vaulted him up to No. 4 on that list. In 29 games with Louisville, he’s slashing .283/.383/.608, with eight homers, nine doubles and three triples.
The Reds are in last place and haven’t gotten much out of the shortstop duo of Jose Barreo and Kevin Newman. They did recently call up Matt McLain, their No. 5 prospect, to play short, but with each passing De La Cruz is making a stronger case that he deserves to playing on the other side of the Ohio River.
Source: www.si.com
