Elly De La Cruz hit his first major league grand slam during a six-run seventh inning, leading the Cincinnati Reds to an 8-4 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Friday night.
Minnesota (78-69) lost for the seventh time in 10 games, and their lead over Detroit for the final AL wild card spot shrank to 2 1/2 games.
“You give up all those runs on one swing, that’s going to be hard,” said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli. “We have a couple weeks left and we need to play solid baseball.”
TJ Friedl drove in the Reds’ first two runs with a second-inning home run and a squeeze bunt single in the seventh inning off Bailey Ober (12-7), which gave Cincinnati a 2-1 lead. Ty France added an RBI double, and De La Cruz followed with his 24th home run, his second since August 21.
De La Cruz watched his grand slam off Jorge Alcala soar into the right-field second deck, holding his bat high.
“I feel so good. It means a lot,” said De La Cruz. “It’s the first of many.”
The All-Star shortstop has played in a National League-leading 147 games this season, and manager David Bell doesn’t plan to rest him much in the remaining games.
“He’s playing with good energy. He’s playing hard. He’s taking care of himself,” Bell said. “I know he’s played a lot of innings, a lot of games, All-Star Game. We’re watching everybody closely.
If somebody really needs a break, we’ll give him a day off, for sure. He’s proving that just having him on the field helps us win games.”
Julian Aguiar (2-0) pitched 6 1/3 innings, allowing three hits and striking out four, in the longest of his six major league starts.
“I just went out there and kept going. All my pitches were working well. It kind of went by quickly,” Aguiar said. “I didn’t realize until I got off the mound in the seventh inning and they started singing for the seventh-inning stretch. I was like, ‘Oh. OK.’”
Friedl had three hits and drove in three runs. His home run was off the end of his bat and landed in the flower boxes just beyond the 23-foot right-field wall.
