Farmers Only - It’s Elly De La Cruz’s world, we’re just living in it

Elly De La Cruz bashed a 512 foot home run for the AA Chattanooga Lookouts on Thursday evening. Five-hundred and twelve feet, which is enough feet to clear the old PNC Tower with seventeen feet to spare.

Five-hundred and twelve feet, and off the bat, it looked every bit that far.

As if the legend of Elly De La Cruz hadn’t already reached Paul Bunyan-esque levels of absurdity, he later stole home when the opponents wholly underestimated his ability to, y’know, do things like steal home. He’s now 32 for 36 on the season in bag-swiping, something that I think gets a tad overlooked thanks to his immense power, switch-hitting prowess, and ability to play a damn fine short.

The Lookouts bested the Rocket City Trash Pandas 4-3, by the way. Elly added a triple and two ribbies, Matt “Yippy Kay Yay” McLain walked and stole a base, Alex “McRoss” McGarry socked another bomb, and the pitching staff’s five-man outing was good enough to bring home the W.

Columbus 6, Louisville 0 (AAA)

The Bats got singles from Albert Almora, Jr., Jake “India Pale” Fraley, and a double from Aristides Aquino, and that was it from the offense. Zip. Zilch. Blergh. Not even a walk.

Meanwhile, presumptive MLB-rotation backfill Justin “Brooks” Dunn was tagged for 6 ER in 3.0 IP in what may well be his final AAA start before replacing Luis Castillo or Tyler Mahle or Mike Minor post-deadline. That’s fun. His ERA is up to 7.29 for the season.

Dayton Dragons 8, West Michigan Whitecaps 7 (High-A)

The Dragons won a slugfest on Thursday, though there was only a lone collective run scored after the 4th inning as both teams saw their starters labor early. Unfortunately for Dayton, that was in the form of Christian “River Boat” Roa, who had been pretty damn unhittable in his most recent trio of starts but was wildly ineffective on the night (3.1 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 6 BB, 2 K). His bats picked him up, however, as homers came from Brian Rey, “Mighty” Quin Cotton, and Mat “The Bat” Nelson, while Jose Torres had a two-hit night and swiped his 22nd bag of the year.

Jupiter Hammerheads 5, Daytona Tortugas 0 (F/7) (Class-A)

Jupiter Hammerheads 4, Daytona Tortugas 3

Between inclement weather and COVID scares, the Tortugas have seemingly been scheduling and re-scheduling games all week. So, I don’t even know exactly which of their games these two were originally supposed to be, but chalk them both up in the loss column.

They managed just a lone hit in their shortened shutout, that off the bat of Ashton Creal - who actually walked, too, for the Tugies only walk of the night. They did bang out 4 hits in their full-game loss, one of which was a tater by catcher Hayden Jones, but that was just about all worth recalling on the night.