Like father, like son. When it comes to baseball families, you already may know the story of Trei Cruz. His father, Jose Cruz Jr, played in the majors for 12 seasons. His grandfather, Jose Cruz, along with his great uncles Tommy and Héctor, all suited up and played in major leagues. Of the four, Héctor, like Trei, was the only one who played on the left side of the infield.
However, to our surprise when we sat down for the SeaWolves opener against Akron to see Trei Cruz starting in centerfield, just like his father. Cruz shared the same feeling as he was heading to spring training.
“So I actually did not know I was going to play outfield until I showed up to spring training this year. It was something our coordinator had been thinking about brought to my attention this spring. I was open and excited about the opportunity to up my value and versatility by playing outfield. I always knew I could do it but never thought it would become a reality until spring. So most of my progression and adjustments to the outfield came in spring training.”Â
“Mechanically, I switch my hands from both sides. Right handed I worked on putting my hands lower so I could not swing so steep and lift the ball more. Left handed, I put the bat on my shoulders to feel tight with my load and be quicker to the ball, resulting it catching more balls out front”.
First pitch Trei Cruz sees, he crushes it to right for his sixth home run of the season as he is now on a five game hitting streak. 1-0 @erie_seawolves pic.twitter.com/yeBcFP1z7L
— Tigers ML Report (@tigersMLreport) May 12, 2023
The results are showing early on.
“One of the parts of my hitting the Tigers and I wanted to improve on was my overall aggressiveness. I have a good eye, so with that, I believe I could do a better job with taking more chances early in counts to do more damage and catch the ball more out front.”
This season, the Tigers have several power-hitting infield prospects worth discussing, including Justyn-Henry Malloy, Colt Keith, and Jace Jung. Trei Cruz now joins the conversation. The significant effort Cruz has invested is proving beneficial for the Erie lineup.
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Jayden Hewitt 
Chris Brown