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Whoa, Nelly: Confident Cruz Hits Pair Of Homers As Rangers Go 2-0 For First Time Since 2000

Nelson Cruz launched a seventh-inning rocket for his second homer of the night. (Photo R.P. Washburne)

•Boxscore: Rangers 8, Indians 5

• MLB standings

ARLINGTON – Nelson Cruz hits balls far. Maybe even farther than Josh Hamilton. Until very recently, the only difference was that most of Cruz’s jaw-dropping bombs came during batting practice.

But with each thundering blow he strikes, it’s becoming more and more realistic that Cruz has finally found the key to taking his power from batting practice into games.

Wednesday night, he demonstrated what he’s learned twice with important home runs in the Rangers 8-5 win over Cleveland. One of them traveled into the club level in left field, making him only the 11^th player to reach the middle deck of Rangers Ballpark.

The win improved the Rangers to 2-0. It’s their first 2-0 start since 2000. If they can finish off the Indians Thursday afternoon, they’ll be 3-0 for the first time since 1996. Around these parts, being compared favorably to anything that happened in 1996 – the team’s first AL West championship team – is a very good thing.

The Ranger dugout was happy to see Nelson Cruz return home safely from his first trip around the bases. (Photo: R.P. Washburne)

“We feel like we accomplished a lot in spring training; we came out healthy and confident and built some camaraderie and team chemistry,” said 3B Michael Young, who is 2-0 for the first time in his career. “I think we’ve shown that in the first two games.”

If confidence translates to success, there is no question Cruz is a much more confident player. He throttled a Fausto Carmona fastball to left to start the second inning Wednesday and give the Rangers an early lead.

After Cleveland closed to within 6-3, he hammered a sloppy slider from Rafael Perez an estimated 432 feet (by a conservative estimate, apparently) into the club level.

Some statistics suggest Cruz’s transformation happened last year after he was dropped from the roster, cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Oklahoma. He proceeded to pummel the Pacific Coast League before getting another callup for September, during which he showed promise with a .330 average and seven home runs in just seven games.

Talk to Cruz, though, and you get a different story. You hear him talk about the suggestion farm director Scott Servais made after Cruz was sent to the minors during the 2007 season. Servais suggested Cruz “open up” his stance slightly, moving his left foot out towards third base a bit.

Make that one small step for Cruz and one giant stride for his career.

“I felt like I could finally really see the ball,” Cruz said. “It helped me recognize pitches so much better.”

In other words, it helped him lay off some of the breaking balls that he had been flailing against hopelessly throughout his career.

When he came back up in July of that year, he began his return with a pair of homers at Kansas City. He hit .276 the rest of that season with six homers. When he came back late last August, he hit .331 with seven homers. And he’s started this season by going 4-for-9. Put it all together and here’s what you get: A .303 batting average, 15 home runs and 51 RBIs in 287 at-bats. It’s roughly equal to half a season. In other words, he’s on a 30-homer, 100-RBIs season.

“This is stuff we’ve known he was capable of doing,” Young said. “He can do big things for our offense. It would be huge to have another big bat in the middle of the lineup and we would love for it to be Nelly.”

Cruz said he is ready for that role.

“I know now that my approach at the plate and the work that I put in before and after the game are making things coming true for me.”

And he might just be a dream come true for the Rangers.