Reds Star Elly De La Cruz Played Through Significant Injury Last Season

Elly De La Cruz struggled in the second half of the 2025 season and on Wednesday night, we got some insight as to why.

Appearing on the Reds Hot Stove on Wednesday night, Reds President of Baseball Operations Nick Krall said Elly played through a partially torn quad in 2025.

"Toward the end of July, he was dealing with a partially torn quad," Krall said. "He has been rehabbing. He was at the ballpark today. He has been rehabbing this whole offseason. To his credit, he played every day. He tried to grind through it. He tried to play through it."

Krall pointed out that De La Cruz had just 12 errors before his injury, then 14 after, while trying to play through it.

It also affected his hitting.

In the first half of the season, De La Cruz slashed .284/.359/.495 with 39 extra-base hits and 25 stolen bases. In the second half, the shortstop slashed just .236/.303/.363 with 21 extra-base hits and 12 stolen bases.

"He had a stretch of games where he had 19 home runs and he didn't hit one in September. That's going to affect him. That is going to affect everything he does, but to his credit, he was trying to play every single day through it. He tried to grind through it, but to the detriment of himself, he didn't play up to where he was, but a large part of that was because he was trying to play through the injury."

You could tell De La Cruz was dealing with something during the second half of the season, but the Reds never came out and said exactly what it was. Now we know.

You can listen to the latest episode of the Reds Hot Stove here.