NEW YORK — After Elly De La Cruz rounded first base with a strained hamstring on May 31 during the series finale against the Braves, Terry Francona found a silver lining.
“He did a good job of pulling up running and not tearing that thing,” Francona said.
De La Cruz caught the injury in time to stop himself from turning for second base, starting to sprint and making the injury worse. He spent the next three weeks being aggressive in a different way, working to accelerate his rehab as much as possible and beat the projected timeline for him to return to the Reds’ lineup.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s on the quick end with his want-to,” Francona said on June 1, after De La Cruz officially went on the injured list.
Two of De La Cruz’s defining traits are how much he cares, and how much he wants to play.
“He doesn’t even like coming out of blowout games,” Francona said. “He just likes to play baseball. That’s a good thing.”
De La Cruz is nearing the end of his first stint on the big league injured list, and he’s on track to return on Tuesday. His timeline to get to this point shows a lot about the drive that makes De La Cruz the type of player that he is. “The good ones,” Francona says, “They push.”
June 1 to June 3
At 9 o’clock in the morning, on the day after he injured his hamstring, De La Cruz went with assistant athletic trainer Tomás Vera and rehab and physical therapy director Eric Gonzalez to get a scan of the shortstop’s hamstring. The results showed a strain between Grade 1 and Grade 2, Francona said.
Francona said that De La Cruz’s first thought was “I can do it,” continuing to play. But when they sat down and talked about the situation, Francona said that De La Cruz understood the plan in place.
De La Cruz got an injection to promote healing, and the Reds set up the first part of his rehab plan.
De La Cruz would spend the next couple of days getting treatment. Depending on how he was feeling, he’d be able to progress into doing some light baseball activity. He’d build up work over time, and a follow-up scan was scheduled for June 15.
Between June 1 and June 3, during the Reds’ series against the Royals, De La Cruz spent most of the game on the top step of the dugout. He was often wearing his glove.
June 5 to June 11
On June 5, during the afternoon in St. Louis before the series-opening game against the Cardinals, Francona walked into the tunnel near the clubhouse and saw De La Cruz with his glove on again. De La Cruz had been throwing a ball against the wall.
De La Cruz was eager to get going, and his hamstring was feeling better. On June 6, Francona said that the Reds had decided to move De La Cruz’s key follow-up MRI from June 15 to June 12. That was a good sign that De La Cruz was doing better.
During this part of the process, De La Cruz started by walking on the treadmill, doing a lot of upper body training, fielding ground balls from his knees and throwing.
“He’s doing everything he can,” Francona said. “Every player pushes, especially the good ones. Our responsibility is to not let him hurt himself.”
On June 7, he started doing some light jogging on the field. De La Cruz was working every day, making progress.
He didn’t want a scheduled off day on June 11 to slow him down. So on that Thursday, he wanted to go to High-A Dayton to work out with the team.
“We told him if he was going to work out, he’d have to do it here (in Cincinnati) so we could keep an eye on him,” Francona said.
De La Cruz still went to the Dragons game that night, sitting in the dugout and cheering on the team.
June 12 to June 18
De La Cruz got that follow-up MRI, which gave the “very good news” that he was 90% healed.
“That’s fantastic,” Francona said. “He almost wills himself.”
He was cleared to up the intensity and the amount of work that he did before games. The Reds’ brass planned to put their heads two days later, at the end of the day on Sunday, June 14, to finalize next steps.
“Certainly, he has an opinion,” De La Cruz said. “We need to try to temper that sometimes. He wants to play so bad. It’s appreciated, but we don’t want to hurt him.”Between June 1 and June 11, the Reds fell below .500 and dropped seven out of nine games. During that stretch, the Reds averaged 3.3 runs per game. The defense was also shaky. Without De La Cruz, the entire infield was shaken up and guys had to play different positions.
The Reds missed their star player.
“He’s champing at the bit,” Francona said on June 12. “We’re trying to do what’s right. I think it aggravates him. We love the fact of how much he wants to play, believe me. We really respect it. We still have to do what’s right. This is where we have to defer to medical people.”
The Reds’ brass ended up getting together the night of June 13, on Saturday, to talk about the next part of the plan for De La Cruz.
“We put out a couple of possible schedules,” Francona said. “We’ve got to talk to him.”
After discussing it with De La Cruz, they determined that he’d run the bases on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (June 15-17) and start a rehab assignment on June 19
“He has been wanting to play for the last week,” Francona said on June 15. “We’ve talked to him several times. The one thing I don’t want him to ever feel is that we’re not listening to him and that we don’t want him to play. We’re dying for him to play. I don’t think you can just do what’s right when it’s convenient.”
On June 16, Francona said that De La Cruz could return to the active roster on Tuesday, June 23, at the earliest. The Reds set the plan for De La Cruz’s rehab assignment in Triple-A (a tricky part in scheduling this rehab assignment was that all of the Reds’ minor league teams were on the road, and there wasn’t an easy place for De La Cruz to get to logistically). On June 18, he hopped on a plane and headed to Gwinnett, Georgia, for a rehab assignment with the Triple-A Louisville Bats.
June 19 to June 21
De La Cruz started his rehab assignment on Friday in Gwinnett. That game started at 5 o’clock, which allowed Francona to tune in and watch the start of the game. In De La Cruz’s second at-bat, he hit a 441-foot home run.
“He looked like normal Elly,” said Reds reliever Pierce Johnson, who was also on a Triple-A rehab assignment that night. “It was great to see him back on the field. He looks normal. I’m excited to have him back as soon as possible.”
After the game, De La Cruz texted Francona: “I’ll be there (in New York) tomorrow.”
“I think he was joking,” Francona said. “It was kind of cool.”
The Reds stuck with the plan. De La Cruz played five innings in Triple-A on Friday and was in the lineup at shortstop. On Saturday, De La Cruz took three at-bats as the DH. On Sunday, he was in the lineup in Triple-A at shortstop. .
Francona said that there was a scenario where De La Cruz could have just played two rehab games and been activated on the Reds’ big league roster on Monday for the start of the series against the Brewers. But with the schedule options that the Reds laid out for De La Cruz, he preferred the one that he’s on now, which has him lined up to be activated on Tuesday.
Francona hasn’t publicly laid out all of the specifics.
But if De La Cruz were activated on Monday with two rehab games under his belt instead of three, would he have been ready to play back-to-back-to-back games and start three games in a row against the Brewers? If he were activated on Monday, would he have needed a day off for the series finale against Milwaukee on that Wednesday?
The Reds do have a team off day scheduled next Thursday. So if De La Cruz is activated on Tuesday, he can play both Tuesday and Wednesday and then just use Thursday as an off day. He wouldn’t have to play back-to-back-to-back games. He also wouldn’t have to simply sit on the bench while being active for one of the Brewers games (as we’ve established, De La Cruz likes to play).
The Reds have missed him. With De La Cruz on the IL, the lineup didn’t have its center piece, the team defense took a hit and other players had to step up into bigger roles.
The Reds will be a different team when he’s back. They’re also getting healthier with Pierce Johnson (expected back on Monday), Hunter Greene (expected back as soon as the next couple of weeks) and Emilio Pagán (set to begin a rehab assignment next week) making progress.
“We’re in the fight,” Pagán said. “Similar to last year, you stay in the fight and go on a run. We have a chance with guys getting healthy, Hunter coming back is going to be huge, when you have your best players on the field and contributing, that allows everybody else to fall in and do what they do and not have any extra pressure on them.”
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