He’d gone 0-for-4 in Game 1 and was hitting .114 over his last 12 games. Not exactly the guy you’d script for a clutch moment. But in the 10th inning of Game 2 of an August 17, 2026 doubleheader, Elly De La Cruz delivered the biggest hit of his career — and he did it the hard way.
With the score tied 5-5 and Tyler Stephenson standing on second as the automatic runner, De La Cruz worked a full count against Cardinals lefty Justin Bruihl and drove a sweeper hard toward the left side. Third baseman Blaze Jordan got a glove on it — enough to deflect the ball, not enough to stop it. Stephenson never hesitated. He scored standing up. Reds 6, Cardinals 5.
It was the first walk-off hit of De La Cruz’s big-league career. MLB’s official scoring logged it as his 19th double of the season, with one RBI. Some accounts called it a single due to the deflection, but the official play-by-play and MLB Stats API are clear: double, one run batted in, ballgame.
How the inning got there
The Reds needed a lifeline just to reach the 10th. Down in the ninth, pinch-hitter Dane Myers launched a home run off Cardinals reliever Peter Strzelecki to tie it — a bench player keeping the game alive. Emilio Pagán (5-1) then handled the top of the 10th without allowing a hit, striking out two, and handed De La Cruz a clean stage.
Bruihl, a left-handed reliever acquired from Cleveland during the season, had come into August with a 3.26 ERA and 1.34 WHIP over 60.2 innings — solid numbers for a bullpen arm. The 3-2 sweeper he threw wasn’t a mistake. De La Cruz simply hit it.
Why this hit means more than the final score
The leverage index on that plate appearance was 2.67 — meaning the moment carried more than twice the pressure of an average MLB situation. The hit also swung Cincinnati’s win probability by 19.5 percentage points. Those two numbers together made it the highest-impact at-bat of the entire night.
That’s the part that gives the story its texture. De La Cruz arrived at that moment in the middle of a legitimate cold stretch — 5-for-44 (.114) over 12 games. He wasn’t the hottest bat in the lineup. He was the one who most needed a hit. And he came through when not coming through would have hurt the most.
The Reds improved to 60-65 on the season. The Cardinals fell to 64-62, watching a win slip away that would have moved them closer to the top of the NL Central. The doubleheader split one game apiece. Bruihl absorbed his first loss of the year (0-1).
The numbers behind the player
The walk-off was a single moment, but it sits inside what is already De La Cruz’s best MLB season. Here’s what Statcast has on him through 2026:
- 474 plate appearances
- 20 home runs, 57 RBI
- AVG: .261
- OPS: .819 (18th in MLB)
- xwOBA: .358 (86th percentile)
- Exit velocity: 93.8 mph — 98th percentile in all of MLB
- Barrel rate: 13.7% (90th percentile)
- Hard-hit rate: 51.5% (94th percentile)
- Bat speed: 75.8 mph (91st percentile)
- Sprint speed: 82nd percentile
That 98th-percentile exit velocity isn’t a footnote — it’s the explanation. When De La Cruz makes full contact, the ball travels differently than it does off almost anyone else in the league. His 13.7% barrel rate and 51.5% hard-hit rate aren’t flukes; they’re the profile of a hitter who, even in a cold spell, has the physical tools to flip a game in a single swing.
That’s exactly what happened on August 17.
