Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz entered Sunday as Major League Baseball’s runaway leader in stolen bases — his 35 plunderings were 11 more than the next closest runner. De La Cruz can credit his sizable lead to a variety of factors, including his top-notch speed and his daringness. Both qualities were on display during Sunday’s contest against the Milwaukee Brewers (GameTracker), particularly when De La Cruz scored from second base on a failed pickoff attempt.
Things went down in the third inning, after De La Cruz reached on a walk and stole second base. Brewers right-hander Colin Rea was mindful of not letting De La Cruz also take third. Unfortunately for Rea, his attempt at keeping De La Cruz honest at second base went about as poorly as possible. For starters, Rea threw the ball between De La Cruz’s legs. Even if Rea had placed the ball perfectly, it wouldn’t have mattered: De La Cruz had his foot on the bag by the time the ball arrived.
The ball bounced into shallow center field, essentially turning this into a single up the middle situation for De La Cruz, who was already rounding third base when Blake Perkins recovered the ball. Perkins made an accurate throw home in time to give catcher William Conteras a chance at making the swipe tag, but it didn’t matter. De La Cruz was deemed safe, giving the Reds a 2-0 lead.
Take a look at the play in motion:
De La Cruz, 22, entered Sunday hitting .230/.327/.416 (110 OPS+) with 11 home runs and 35 stolen bases. His contributions have been worth an estimated 1.9 Wins Above Replacement, per Baseball Reference’s calculations. De La Cruz also ranked in the 99th percentile of sprint speed, according to Statcast, averaging 30 feet per second.
