All in all, you couldn’t ask for much more from Joel De La Cruz.
For a late-blooming 27-year old making his first major league appearance, six innings of seven-hit, three-run ball against the hottest team in the majors is both refreshing and surprising. Five days ago he was punching out Charlotte’s Brett Hayes in front 5,538 people in Gwinnett—he acquitted himself nicely.
But that’s more than you can say for Atlanta’s offense, which was able to get men aboard but struggled to bring them around to score in a dispiriting 3-0 loss in the series finale against the scorching-hot Cleveland Indians.