LOS ANGELES – The day after Elly De La Cruzdropped jaws at Dodger Stadium when he dropped the hammer on Teoscar Hernandez with the strongest throw to the plate in a career full of them, MLB’s official tracker of such things downgraded the velocity.
Turns out it was a mere 102 mph, not the 105.3that initially flashed on the Statcast tracker before they pulled it down for apparent further verification – the second time he has thrown a ball so hard Statcast declared an error in the initial reading.
“The thing break?” Reds manager Terry Francona said.
Apparently.
The other time that happened was in San Diego two years ago, when the system said he threw
a ball over first base at 109 mph. Or not.
Reds broadcaster Jim Day calls the De La Cruz “the human glitch” for the way he bedevils the tracking system.
Reds teammate Eugenio Suárez calls him simply “amazing.”
Whatever you want to call him, the Reds’ two-time All-Star was the buzz of the clubhouse the next day and around the ballpark – downgraded velocity and all.
Even with the discount, his throw in the third inning of the middle game of this week’s series to cut down Hernandez was the highest-velocity throw by an infielder for an assist since Statcast began tracking in 2015 – the first to reach triple dights.
De La Cruz owns the top six spots on that list.
From an optics standpoint, this one was at least as impressive for the fact it came from well into the outfield — perhaps 200 feet or more from the plate – and that it denied Hernandez of an inside-the-park home run by more than a step.
“Way more than a step,” said catcher Jose Trevino, who short-hopped the throw, then turned around to wait the split-second for the runner.
“It was pretty impressive,” said the catcher, whose first reaction after the play probably was similar to the 48,000 or so other people in the building.
“I don’t know if I can say what I was thinking,” he said.
Fact is, he has had only – maybe – two pitchers ever throw a ball harder to him, he said: former Yankees teammate Aroldis Chapman, who routinely hit 103 on the radar gun through much of his career, and former Rangers teammate Emmanuel Clase, who topped out at 102.7 early in his career.
The only thing Trevino said surprised him about De La Cruz’s throw was that the play wasn’t closer.
The triple-digit velocity? Not so much.
“He does something every year,” Trevino said.
Nearby teammate Matt McLain chimed in: “He’s been doing it for five years.
“When (left-fielder JJ) Bleday threw the ball in, and I turned and I saw where (De La Cruz) was,” McLain said, “I was like, ‘if it’s on line, he’s out.’ “
Maybe De La Cruz can sweeten his upcoming arbitration and eventual free agent value by doing the two-way Shohei thing and pitch, too. He already throws harder than the Dodgers’ Ohtani.
In fact, De La Cruz has joked at times about becoming a closer.
“No,” Trevino said. “He hit a ball like 110 (MPH) last night.”
Suárez: “He’s very special.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Elly De La Cruz throw harder than most pitches Jose Trevino has caught
