LOS ANGELES - The Cincinnati Reds left Dodger Stadium with a loss Tuesday night, but Elly De La Cruz kept supplying the kind of electricity that makes people in that clubhouse look past the present and talk about what comes next.
He did it with the bat first, then with the arm.
De La Cruz launched a 444-foot home run deep into the night in the middle game of the series, then followed it a half-inning later with a relay throw from the middle of center field that stopped Teoscar Hernandez from circling the bases for an inside-the-park homer. The throw was clocked at 105.3 mph before MLB’s official metrics site removed the figure.
The Reds still fell 3-2 to the Dodgers on Tuesday (Sept. 8), but the night offered another reminder of why De La Cruz is such a central piece of the team’s thinking about next season.
“It’s no secret that he’s one of the best players in our game, especially at shortstop,” said teammate and pal Matt McLain, his double-play partner.
“We’ve said this like every year: He just keeps getting better and better.”
Even before the home run, De La Cruz ranked fourth in the majors in position-player WAR at 5.2, according to fangraphs.com. Only Cubs MVP favorite Pete Crow-Armstrong stood ahead of him among the names mentioned in that race.
And right now, he may be playing as well as he ever has since bursting into the big leagues in 2023.
Francona has had a front-row seat for two seasons, and he likes what he’s seeing.
“Oh, boy, I don’t know. He’s had some really good stretches,” Francona said. “What’s nice is last year at this time he was really struggling, and he looks really good right now.”
Good. Healthy.
Strong. Energetic.
That’s the picture the Reds are getting in September for the first time in four big-league Septembers from De La Cruz. He faded late in his debut season.
He faded less in 2024. Last year, a quad injury in the second half chipped away at his power, even though he never missed a game.
This year looks different.
He missed three weeks in June with a hamstring injury, and Francona said a few recent days at DH may also be part of why De La Cruz has shown up to September looking fresher than he has before.
Whatever the reason, the production is there.
De La Cruz homered off the first pitch he saw in this series from the left side, sending it into the right-field seats. On Tuesday, he went the other way again, this time from the right side, and took Tarik Skubal deep for a tying shot in the third inning. The rest of the Reds managed three hits and no other runs against the two-time Cy Young winner over his 7 1/3 innings.
That homer gave De La Cruz a seven-game hitting streak. Over that stretch, he was 13-for-26 with two walks and homers in each of his last four games.
He has also reached base in 16 straight games, dating to Aug. 22 at Arizona.
After an opposite-field double in the eighth Tuesday, he was 30-for-66 over that span, hitting .455 with five homers, seven walks, 12 RBIs, a .507 on-base percentage and a .788 slugging percentage for a 1.295 OPS.
The home run Tuesday tied his career high at 25, and it also matched the franchise record for a switch hitter. He got there in far fewer games than he needed in 2024, when he played 160 games and hit No. 25 in his 126th game.
There was more than one kind of power on display at Dodger Stadium, and that was the point. The bat.
The arm. The all-around force.
And maybe, for the Reds, a little bit of hope too.
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