Elly De La Cruz is Making Team – and League
Cincinnati Reds’ superstar Elly De La Cruz looks every bit of a top prospect who is finding his groove in the big leagues. After last year’s debut season showed his raw ability off, early in 2024 De La Cruz looks more refined in terms of his approach and discipline at the plate.
Furthermore, with his increased ability to get on base, he’s showing off his elite set of wheels even more than he did in 2023, having already stolen 15 bases in just 25 games.
He stole three bases in Wednesday’s win over the Phillies, and those three bases put him in some historic company.
First, with regards to the Reds, from Sarah Langs of MLB.com:
Elly De La Cruz’s 3-SB day Weds was his 2nd such game of 2024, in the Reds’ 24th game
he’s the 2nd CIN player with 2 such games thru 24 team games in a season (since at least 1901), joining 2015 Billy Hamilton, who was the last player to do this, MLB-wide
only other MLB players to do so in Wild Card era:
2004 Dave Roberts
2002 Chuck Knoblauch
1998 Craig Biggio
1995 Gary Sheffield
And from a general league perspective:
Elly De La Cruz’s 3-SB day Weds was the 3rd such game of his career in career game No. 122
only players with MORE 3-SB games thru 122 career games, since at least 1901:
Tim Raines: 7
Vince Coleman: 5
De La Cruz is also hitting .306 through his first 85 at-bats. He has seven homers and 18 RBI and a superb OPS of 1.051.
The Reds will take on the Texas Rangers on Friday night at 8:05 p.m. ET.
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