Fernando Cruz may have announced himself on the national stage with his clutch Houdini act and similarly epic celebration in Wild Card Game 2, but for the reliever’s Yankee teammates, this was nothing new.
Just ask Paul Blackburn, Cruz’s catch partner, who has known the enthusiastic right-hander since they overlapped in the Chicago Cubs’ minor-league system a decade ago.
“What you see out there on TV and how he acts, that’s literally him at all times, even in the bullpen,” Blackburn told the Daily News. “We score a run and he’s freaking jumping up and down, fist pumps, loud claps, just echoing all through there.”
Fellow reliever Tim Hill can attest to that, too.
“He brings a different level of energy that I’ve ever seen,” Hill told The News. “We’re in the bullpen, he has his seat, but he’s in his seat for like 10% of the time. He’s always doing his thing. By the time the phone rings for him, he’s usually on the mound, ready to pitch.”
So it came as no surprise on Wednesday night when Cruz removed his cap, repeatedly slapped his chest, released a guttural scream, spun and unleashed a forceful fist pump when he escaped a bases-loaded jam in the Yankees’ 4-3 win over the Boston Red Sox in the Bronx.
The game was tied, 3-3, when Cruz entered the game with two runners on and nobody out in the top of the seventh, replacing Carlos Rodón.
Cruz got two quick outs before Jazz Chisholm Jr. made a diving stop to hold Yoshida Masataka to an infield single. Cruz then got Trevor Story to fly out to deep center field, keeping the tie intact.
“This is something I’ve been dreaming [of], that I’ve been imagining since I was a little kid,” Cruz, 35, said. “The emotions are gonna come out. I’m an emotional guy. I’m passionate about what I do and I love what I do. I love doing it for my guys.”
Cruz’s escape act helped the Yankees stave off elimination and even the best-of-three Wild Card series at one game apiece. Game 2 remained tied until the bottom of the eighth, when Jazz Chisholm Jr. scored all the way from first base on Austin Well’s RBI single for the go-ahead run.
“Watching him go out there and getting out of that jam just shows you how much heart he has. He’s always going to fight,” Chisholm said of Cruz, who enters games to “Circle of Life” from Disney’s “The Lion King.”
“He might be a little lion one day. He might be a big lion one day,” Chisholm said. “We go through the hard times, but at the end of the day, that’s the guy I trust going out there every time.”
The Puerto Rican-born Cruz, a childhood Yankee fan, didn’t make his MLB debut until 2022 with the Cincinnati Reds, when he was 32 years old.
When the Yankees acquired the right-hander in an offseason trade that sent catcher Jose Trevino to Cincinnati, they believed they could get more out of Cruz, who had a 4.86 ERA last year but boasted an elite strikeout rate, thanks largely to a devastating splitter.
Cruz pitched to a 3.56 ERA with 72 strikeouts in 48 innings this year, often operating as the Yankees’ “fireman” to get them out of all sorts of sweaty situations.
None were bigger than Wednesday night’s.
“I can’t tell you how excited he is to put this uniform on every single day and what a privilege it is for him,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He exudes that all of the time. There’s a passion that he does his job with, and it spilled over a little bit tonight.”
And his teammates love it.
“He’s a guy you want on your team, for sure,” Blackburn said. “He’s a guy down there that has the same energy every single day. He’s always rooting for everybody no matter who it is or what situation it is. I think the best way to put it is that he’s just authentic.”
