Reds’ Elly De La Cruz homers from both sides of the plate in spring training
February 23, 2025
3,256
Cincinnati Reds infielder Elly De La Cruz is one of the most tantalizing talents in MLB, and the 23-year-old showed why on Saturday.
Playing against the Cleveland Guardians in a spring-training game, De La Cruz hit a home run from both sides of the plate. First, he went yard from the left side in the opening inning, getting under a curveball and sending it over the right-field fence.
Then, in his next at-bat, De La Cruz sent a heater over the opposite-field wall from the right side.
The two long balls combined for 859 feet.
De La Cruz has been electric in the roughly year-and-a-half he has been in the show. The 6-foot-5 shortstop has a cannon for an arm, blazing speed and overwhelming power.
Last season, De La Cruz totaled 25 home runs, 76 RBIs, a 5.2 WAR and an MLB-high 67 stolen bases, while posting a .259/.339/.471 slash line and earning an All-Star nod. Furthermore, he was in the 90th percentile in bat speed, 88th in average exit velocity and 86th in barrel percentage, per Statcast.
At the same time, De La Cruz has been a bit erratic, recording an MLB-high 218 strikeouts and also a league-high 29 errors at shortstop last season.
“I always put in hard work in the offseason,” De La Cruz said after the game Saturday, according to MLB.com. “That will come out in the [regular] season.”
New Reds manager Terry Francona recently said that he wants De La Cruz to be “the best player in baseball on the best team in baseball.”
The Reds are coming off a 77-85 campaign in which they missed the playoffs for a fourth consecutive season.
Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily
FOLLOWFollow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience
Major League Baseball
Cincinnati Reds
Elly De La Cruz
Get more from Major League BaseballFollow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
A legjobb élmény biztosítása érdekében olyan technológiákat használunk, mint a cookie-k az eszközadatok tárolására és/vagy eléréséhez. Ha beleegyezik ezekbe a technológiákba, akkor olyan adatokat dolgozhatunk fel ezen az oldalon, mint a böngészési viselkedés vagy az egyedi azonosítók. A hozzájárulás elmulasztása vagy visszavonása bizonyos funkciókat és funkciókat hátrányosan érinthet.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
