Elly De La Cruz kept giving the Reds life in Los Angeles, but Cincinnati couldn’t quite turn his big night into a win.
De La Cruz launched a 444-foot home run Tuesday night - the longest ever hit at Dodger Stadium this season - and later doubled off the wall in left-center, yet the Reds still came up short in a 3-2 loss to the Dodgers. The result gave Los Angeles the first two games of the series and sealed the series win with one game left to play.
The Dodgers struck first in the bottom of the opening inning when Will Smith drilled a solo home run. Nick Lodolo ran into trouble again in the second, opening the door with two walks and a single before hitting Tommy Edman to force in a run and make it 2-0.
Cincinnati answered in the third. Dane Myers extended the inning with a two-out single on the seventh pitch of his at-bat, and De La Cruz followed by tying the game with his blast.
The Reds also leaned on De La Cruz defensively later in the inning, when Myers’ diving try on a liner into shallow center missed and the ball rolled to the wall. Teoscar Hernandez tried to turn it into an inside-the-park homer, but De La Cruz handled the relay 75 feet into the outfield grass and fired a 105.3 MPH strike to Jose Trevino at the plate to cut Hernandez down easily.
The game turned for good in the fifth, when Lodolo’s command slipped again. He walked Mookie Betts with one out, hit Will Smith, and then watched Teoscar Hernandez single home the go-ahead run. That ended Lodolo’s night, and Julian Garcia came in to get the final out of the inning on a groundout.
Cincinnati had another chance in the eighth, still down by one. De La Cruz worked his way to another big swing, doubling to the wall in left-center with two outs, but Sal Stewart struck out looking to leave the tying run stranded.
Graham Ashcraft kept the door open with a scoreless eighth, and the Reds made one last push in the ninth. Tyler Stephenson opened with a walk and was lifted for pinch runner Carlos Jorge, who stole second with one out. But that was as far as the rally went, with a strikeout and a groundout ending the game.
Teoscar Hernandez’s go-ahead RBI single in the fifth stood as the key swing of the night.
De La Cruz’s performance added another layer to a scorching stretch. He has six straight multi-hit games, multiple hits in nine of his last 12, and has homered in four straight.
Since August 22, he has played in 16 games and collected hits in 15 of them; the only game without a hit still included two walks. Over that stretch, he’s hit .455/.507/.788 with 12 extra-base hits.
He’s now at 25 home runs and 25 stolen bases, marking the second time in his career he has reached 25/25. He also did it in 2024, when he finished 25/67. The homer he hit against Tarik Skubal was not only the longest in Dodger Stadium in 2026, it was also the furthest against Skubal in more than a year.
The rest of the Cincinnati lineup struggled to keep pace, going 3-for-27 with all three hits coming as singles. Jorge’s steal in the ninth was the first of his MLB career, though he already had 187 stolen bases in 491 minor league games.
Garcia, meanwhile, continued his sharp turnaround. After giving up five total runs in back-to-back outings in late August, he has allowed one hit across 5.0 shutout innings in his last four games. His ERA dropped back to 3.05 through 41.1 innings with Cincinnati after this one.
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