There were theatrics during Wednesday’s game between the Washington Nationals and Cincinnati Reds. The series of events started with the Nats asking to check the bat of the Reds’ sensational rookie Elly De La Cruz. It ended with a De La Cruz home run and pointing to his bat.
The Nationals asked the umpires to check the knob at the end of De La Cruz’s bat. Umpires forced De La Cruz to remove the knob in the second inning to get looked into. While they waited for the league office to respond, the game continued. De La Cruz struck out during the subsequent at-bat.
However, the league informed the umps later that the knob was approved. With the knob back on the bat, De La Cruz crushed a towering home run in his next at-bat in the fifth inning.
An animated De La Cruz turned back and pointed to the knob before trotting the bases.
Following the 9-2 Reds’ win, Nats manager Dave Martinez explained he wasn’t trying to make a big deal of the situation. He accepted that the knob was legal. But he wasn’t for the antics of De La Cruz after the home run.
“I’m not trying to penalize this kid, I’m not,” Martinez explained, per Andrew Golden of The Washington Post. “I love the way he plays the game. I didn’t like his antics after he hit the home run. We can do without that. He’s only got two weeks in the big league. But he’s going to be a good player.”
De la Cruz has been scorching hot since making his MLB debut on June 6. The 21-year-old is hitting .318/.356/.536 with four home runs, 14 extra-base hits, 14 RBIs, and 11 steals through 26 games.
“I’m just enjoying every single moment that I have up here,” Elly De La Cruz said during Bally Sports Cincinnati’s postgame broadcast.
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