Elly De La Cruz did it again: 'He does something every week you haven’t seen in 100 years’

MIAMI – Don’t look now, but Elly De La Cruz is racking up absurd accomplishments so fast right now that it might take the league office a few days to catch up to his first career five-hit game Monday night.

The Cincinnati Reds’ All-Star shortstop hit two long home runs and two scorched doubles in that game, and he also beat out a slow-hit ball to the left of the mound that forced the pitcher to rush and throw off-balance – De La Cruz winding up on second when the ball bounded past first.

It was ruled a two-base error instead of the hit and throwing error that should have been awarded, and the Reds on Tuesday asked the league to review it.

So maybe when the team lands in Milwaukee for this weekend's series, its shortstop will have another hit in Miami.

That’s about as close as anyone has come in a week or more to slowing De La Cruz’s sprint through baseball history.

And for those who might be having trouble keeping up at home, imagine the guys in the dugout watching it up close and personal on a daily basis.

When De La Cruz lined his upper-deck home run to right field in the eighth inning Monday, pitcher Brent Suter leaned over to teammate Nick Martinez in the dugout to share some knowledge.

“He did the math,” Martinez said. “I think he had a total exit velocity of 490-something.”

That’s a combined 490 mph on those four extra-base hits, Martinez explained.

When Suter, the Harvard grad, was asked to confirm a few minutes later, the number got bigger.

“Yeah, it was 494-ish. Total exit velo,” Suter said. “Is that crazy or what?”

It would be. If it were true. That would be a ball-splitting 124-mph. In fact, De La Cruz’s total exit velocity, including the roller near the mound, was closer to 174.

So much for Suter’s future in the Reds’ analytics department.

It was still ball-crushing impressive.

That the exaggeration was believable is what makes this 22-year-old kid with barely 200 big-league games a growing legend among teammates and rivals – Suter’s believable math reminiscent of the night in San Diego in May when De La Cruz “broke” Statcast with an alleged 106.9-mph throw to first that MLB quickly took down from its database for lack of an ability to verify the stunning figure (and perhaps a bit of disbelief).

But here’s the thing that’s no exaggeration:

“It seems like he does something new every week that nobody else has done in 100 years,” teammate Nick Lodolo said. “The guy is incredible.”

Consider this week alone (even before that missing fifth hit from Monday is presumably credited):

• When he followed Monday’s performance with four more hits Tuesday (including another two doubles), he became just the 13th Reds player in history with back-to-back four-hit games, first in 23 years (Dmitri Young), according to MLB stats guru Sarah Langs – who points out no Red has ever had three straight.
• He’s the youngest in the majors with back-to-back four-hit games since Cameron Maybin in 2008 (also per Langs).
• Those were his second and third four-hit games of this season, sixth and seventh in the first 209 games of his career.
• The two homers-two doubles combination of hits had been done only once before in Reds history (also Paul O’Neill in 1991) and made him one of only 14 20-50 players in MLB history – only the second shortstop to pull it off (Hanley Ramirez, 2007).
• In fact, after just Monday and Tuesday, he has not only the back-to-back four-hit games and the four-extra-base-hit game but he also has a game this year with four walks (April 20 vs. Angels) and a game with four hits and four steals (May 16 at Los Angeles Dodgers). Nobody else has all of those in an MLB career, and he has all of those in four months, according to OptaSTATS.
• And as for those stolen bases, he nabbed his MLB-leading 58th on Tuesday, taking third off inattentive pitcher Max Meyer before Meyer could recover to even bother with a throw. In doing so De La Cruz moved past Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio (career-high 57) to put him among only seven shortstops to reach that total in a season.
• He already has more steals than the last Red to lead the league in stolen bases (Bobby Tolan with 57 in 1970).

And he has nearly two months left this season to add to all of those numbers.

“I’m just having fun out there,” De La Cruz said after feasting on the Marlins for the second straight night to lead another Reds romp.

That much is apparent watching him – and in the children’s voices throughout the sparse crowds at the Marlins’ ballpark that could be heard every time he came to bat, cheering above the rest for “Elly! Elly!”

The way he plays gives off the vibe of a 6-foot-5, hair-raising, helmet-flying, powerful version of all those kids idolizing him at the top of their lungs.

“The sky’s the limit. The sky’s the absolute limit,” said Suter, considering what De La Cruz might do in his career a year or two, or five, beyond this first season in the majors.

Suter recalled a recent conversation he and veteran Jeimer Candelario had with De La Cruz and what he said to the young shortstop.

“I’m like, ‘Obviously you take it one day at a time here. But go make your mark on this game, man,’ “ Suter said. “ ‘For so many reasons, you’re good for the game, for the Reds, for everything. You are special.’ “

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Elly De La Cruz did it again: 'He does something every week you haven’t seen in 100 years’