Nelson Cruz just proved he’s the best old dude baseball player the MLB’s got
By John Buhler
Nelson Cruz made the Chicago White Sox respect their elder, as in him.
Nelson Cruz is a man, he’s 40 and he’s still better than you at baseball.
Cruz only gets better with age. Just don’t tell the ageless Julio Franco hanging out in a batting cage somewhere in the world about what Cruz did to the poor Chicago White Sox on Sunday afternoon. Cruz didn’t go Half Nelson, he went full-blown, grown-ass man dad-strength Full Nelson on the South Siders in front of a crowd of no one. Jason Benetti was on the call though, and we love him.
The Minnesota Twins designated hitter had himself a ball game vs. the White Sox on Sunday. The 40-year-old slugger went 4-5 at the plate with two home runs, two doubles and seven runs batted in. He had 10 runs batted in on the weekend. Cruz becomes the oldest player in MLB history with four extra-base hits and four runs batted in during one ball game.
Nelson Cruz is raking at the plate... must be a day that ends in Y. He has 2 HR, 2 2B and 7 RBI today against the White Sox.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) July 26, 2020
At 40, Cruz is the oldest player with 4 XBH and 4 RBI in a game, and he's only the 4th 40-year old with a 7-RBI game (the RBI became official in 1920). pic.twitter.com/8mCBddCKKM
Nelson Cruz with another HR. He has two homers, two doubles and 7 RBI on the day. He has 10 RBI on the weekend.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) July 26, 2020
Nelson Cruz made sure the Chicago White Sox would lose on Sunday.
Will Cruz get “randomly” drug tested after beating the snot out of the White Sox this weekend? I don’t know, but he was the reason Minnesota clobbered the Sox to the tune of 14-2. The Twins win their first series of the season on the road, improving to 2-1 on the year. Chicago drops its first series at home, as the White Sox only took one vs. the Twins this weekend.
The Twins are seen as the presumptive favorite to win the AL Central again in 2020. They have a lineup that is absolutely loaded and one that will take the ball out of the ballpark as often as possible. As long as they don’t get matched up with the New York Yankees at any point in the postseason, the Twins have a great shot of reaching their first World Series since 1991.
Next. Shohei Ohtani was horrendous in his return to the mound. dark
No, Cruz wasn’t playing in the big leagues back in the latter days of the first Bush Administration, but he was definitely playing baseball as a pre-teen somewhere. Who would have thought some nearly 30 years later he’d be crushing baseballs this prodigiously in a stadium featuring zero fans at 40 years old? We are living in the weirdest timeline, and this is today’s best evidence of that.
Cruz helped the Twins cruise past the White Sox, winning in a complete laugher on Sunday.