Barry Larkin on Elly De La Cruz caught stealing in 6th: 'That's just unacceptable'
The Cincinnati Reds appeared to have a promising opportunity to cut into a two-run deficit in the bottom of the 6th inning of Thursday's 5-4 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Trailing 3-1, Elly De La Cruz led off with a walk and stole second.
Diamondbacks starting pitcher Slade Cecconi threw to third base when De La Cruz took a huge lead off second and started running toward third. De La Cruz was caught in a pickle and tagged out.
"That's just unacceptable," National Baseball Hall of Famer and Bally Sports Ohio analyst Barry Larkin said during the broadcast. "That's what that is. That cannot happen. And I know the word is yeah, we want to be aggressive. But you're in scoring position, middle of your lineup's coming up. You don't need to steal that base right there. And that's something hopefully he will learn. You learn it by making that mistake right there. Hopefully that doesn't happen again."
"You get a leadoff walk," Larkin continued. "Then you get a stolen base. Then you get a caught stealing. And the patience and maturity is understanding that once you get that first steal, you've done your job. You're in scoring position. And now you let the offense that has been down give them a chance to knock you in."
"That's stealing a base to steal a base," Bally Sports Ohio analyst Sam LeCure said after the game. "That is not stealing a base to further your team's chances to win the game. The stolen base late? That furthers your team's chances to win the ballgame. He's gonna learn the difference because today's gonna be a great example of it for him. He's gonna look back - did I really need to steal that base? No. I ran us out of an inning when we haven't been able to score any runs. … And he'll recognize the difference. And Elly's gonna be a great player. But he needs to learn along the way just like a lot of these guys do."
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This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Larkin on Elly caught stealing in 6th: 'That's just unacceptable'
