Jay Bruce

Jay Bruce is a professional baseball player from the United States of America and is an outfielder. Bruce began his baseball journey at the West Brook High School in his hometown. His exploits got him into the third team of the High School All American lineup. Bruce decided to enroll for the MLB programme and was picked by the Cincinnati Reds and placed into their farm system in 2005.

Bruce began in the Gulf Coast League at the lowest level in the Reds' farm system for rookies. In the 37 games he played, he had a .270 batting average and was subsequently moved to the Billings Mustangs. At the Mustangs, he had a 257 batting average and hit 4 over the boundary with 13 RBIs. He stayed with the Mustangs until 2006, and then moved into the low A-league affiliates, the Dayton Dragons. His batting average jumped up to a .291 and he hit 16 homers and was quickly a part of the most-wanted list of prospects.

The following year, Bruce had another bump up, this time to the High-A team, the Sarasota Reds. He was, subsequently promoted to the Red's Double-A team, the Chattanooga Lookouts. His performance was had improved so rapidly that he was picked to play in the All-Star Futures game. In the same year, he won another promotion to play at the Louisville Bats and won the Player of the Year title in the AAA-league, from Baseball America. Bruce also won the Minor League Player of the Year award for the Cincinnati Reds.

In 2008, Bruce got a call from the Major League team and was invited to attend the 2008 Spring Training. His first spring training session was with the Minor League camp at the Louisville Bats. He had a .279 on-base percentage with a .262 at bat.

In May, Bruce made his MLB debut against the Pittsburgh Pirates and played in centerfield. He was 3-for-3 at bat and had a double and 2 singles in those three hits. His debut was quite eventful – he drove in 2 runs; was walked twice and had scored twice; had a stolen base, and was picked for his next game too. He became the first MLB player since 1977 to reach the first base in all his first 6 at-bats.

Bruce had a 1.00 slugging average after his first 6 games, the second highest ever after the same duration by any MLB player. He had a 12-game winning streak in July, the longest ever for any rookie in 2008.

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