Wild stat puts Elly De La Cruz’s amazing speed into perspective

Elly De La Cruz hasn’t been in the majors that long. He’s a rookie and wasn’t even called up to the Cincinnati Reds until early June.

Despite that, he’s turned a lot of heads. He continued to do that on Friday.

De La Cruz was the first hitter of Friday night’s game between the Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers. He hit a ball into the right-field corner. And while Mookie Betts played the ball about as well as could be expected, De La Cruz was running hard the whole way and ended up at third base with a triple.

The Reds tweeted that “Elly casually went home to third in 10.84 seconds.” And as impressive as that sounds, it only tells part of the story.

De La Cruz’s 10.84 seconds was the fastest any player has gone from home to third on a triple this season. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. But as MLB’s Sarah Langs detailed on Twitter, it is faster than any other player has gone first to third on a triple this season.

Earlier in July, De La Cruz stole second, third and home over the course of two pitches. So, he’s got a lot of confidence in his speed.

And much to the delight of baseball fans, he loves showing it off.

[Sarah Langs]