The Cincinnati Reds are about to find out exactly how much Elly De La Cruz has been carrying them. The 24-year-old shortstop hit the 10-day injured list on Monday with a right hamstring strain, and the team that has been clinging to relevance in the NL Central just lost its biggest weapon.
De La Cruz has been the second-best player in the National League this season behind only Shohei Ohtani in most advanced metrics. He has been hitting .293 with 14 home runs, 25 stolen bases, and the kind of defensive highlights at shortstop that nobody else in the league is producing. The Reds are 28-26 because of him.
Now they get to find out what they look like without him.
The Reds have built a roster around speed and defense, with Elly as the centerpiece of both. He hits leadoff. He plays the most demanding position on the field at an elite level. He changes games on the bases. Removing him from the lineup does not just take away production. It changes how the entire team operates.
Matt McLain is the obvious player who gets the bump in playing time and importance with Elly out. McLain has been productive in his role as a versatile infielder, but he is not a shortstop in the way Elly is. The defensive drop-off is going to be visible in real time.
The pitching staff is the group most directly affected. Cincinnati’s young arms have benefited from Elly’s range at short turning bloop hits into outs and ground balls into double plays. Hunter Greene specifically has been one of the major beneficiaries. His ERA dropped significantly any time Elly was healthy and in the lineup. That math works in reverse too.
The hamstring injury timing is also concerning given Elly’s playing style. He plays at one speed, which is full speed. He is a constant threat to steal, an aggressive baserunner, and a shortstop who covers more ground than anybody else in baseball. Hamstring injuries for players like him have a way of recurring even after the initial recovery.
The Reds front office now faces a question about how to handle the trade deadline. Cincinnati is right around .500 in a division that is more open than most projected. The Brewers have been good but not dominant. The Cubs have underperformed. The Cardinals are rebuilding on the fly. There is a path for the Reds to be a playoff team if they keep their core healthy.
That path narrows considerably without Elly. Whether the team should add or hold at the deadline becomes a much harder call. A two-week IL stint is one thing. A longer absence changes everything.
For Elly personally, the timing is brutal in another way. He was in the early conversation for the National League MVP. He was the leading All-Star vote-getter at shortstop in the NL. He was about to have his first nationally televised summer as a true superstar. The hamstring takes some of that runway away.
The good news is that hamstring strains are usually not season-altering injuries. The grade of the strain has not been publicly disclosed, but the Reds putting him on the 10-day IL rather than the 60-day is a positive sign. He should be back before the All-Star break.
The two-week window without him will tell Cincinnati a lot about what kind of team they actually are. The hope is that the answer is something the Reds can live with. The reality is that no team should have to find out the hard way.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
