CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Reds’ heartbeat is back.

Elly De La Cruz, the team’s 23-year-old superstar, hit his first home run since the last day of July, breaking a career-long streak of 43 games and 181 at-bats without going deep, capping the scoring in the Reds’ 7-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs.

“If we get him hot,” Reds manager Terry Francona said of De La Cruz, “boy, would that really give us a big lift.”

In his third big-league season, De La Cruz has been through the highs and lows of the game, making his second All-Star team and flirting with .300 for much of the first half, but then suffering a pair of leg injuries and the longest streak of games in his career without a home run: 30 games and 114 at-bats from June 23 to July 31 and then a 43-game streak from the first day of August until Friday. That doesn’t even take into account the death of his older sister, the trip to the Dominican Republic for her funeral and still playing in each of the team’s 154 games so far this season.

The Reds, with the 10th-fewest homers in baseball, hit a season-high five on the night, starting with Miguel Andujar’s fourth homer for Cincinnati since coming over at the trade deadline but first in more than a month. Second baseman Matt McLain hit a solo homer in the third, and in the fourth, Spencer Steer hit the first of his two home runs. With the score tied at 4 in the sixth, Austin Hays beat out an infield single before Steer homered. On the next pitch from Cubs reliever Porter Hodge, De La Cruz hit his opposite-field home run.

“I hope it took some weight off of his shoulders because he’s the heart of this team,” Steer said. “When he goes, we go. It’s been a tough stretch for him, but you’ve got to commend him on how he’s handled it. He’s the same guy every day — he comes in, he puts in his work, and no matter how he’s playing, no matter the results, he’s still the same guy. And as a teammate and a friend, that’s something you have to respect.”

That feeling was as De La Cruz skipped through the dugout high-fiving everyone until he got to coach Mike Napoli, who hugged him. De La Cruz turned around and got another from pitcher Hunter Greene.

“It felt really good to hit that home run,” De La Cruz said. “We’re really close — everyone in that clubhouse. We’re happy for each other, so when somebody is doing good, we’re all happy.”

When De La Cruz hit his 18th home run of the season on June 23, he was hitting .272/.348/.513. Even with his power outage from that point to the All-Star break, he was hitting .284/.359/.495 and had seen his strikeout rate cut to 24.3 percent, down from 31.3 percent last season.

Entering Friday’s game, he was hitting just .225/.287/.326 in the second half, with a 28.7 percent strikeout rate. During his most recent power outage, his strikeout rate was up to 29.8 percent.

Monday in St. Louis, Francona dropped De La Cruz to seventh in the batting order after 148 starts in the three-hole over the team’s first 149 games. De La Cruz was just 2-for-11 in his first four games lower in the order, but he also walked a total of four times over that stretch. Monday, he walked again in his first plate appearance before being caught stealing and walked in his second.

Then came the sixth, when he followed Steer with the home run, and he walked again in the eighth, giving him six walks and six strikeouts in his five games out of the three-hole. De La Cruz said he feels good physically and didn’t feel fatigued despite playing in every game this season. Throughout it all, he has been in the lineup day in and day out. Not only has he started 153 of the team’s 154 games, but he has also started 149 games at shortstop.

“You just have to keep your mind strong — this game is all about mentality,” De La Cruz said. “I’ve just come to the ballpark with the same mentality, positive every day.”

The Reds entered Friday two games back of the New York Mets for the final wild-card spot, tied with the Arizona Diamondbacks and a game up on the San Francisco Giants. The Mets won shortly after the Reds did, keeping Cincinnati two games back of New York with eight games remaining for both teams. Neither the Diamondbacks nor the Giants had started their games by the time the postgame fireworks were going off at Great American Ball Park. Regardless, both teams started their games trying to keep pace with the Reds.

The Reds have two more games against the Cubs this weekend and are off Monday before hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates for three games and finishing the season in Milwaukee.

As Francona noted, he didn’t major in math, but he knows the Reds have to win to have any chance of playing in October, and Reds wins are easier when De La Cruz is hitting.

“I’m so happy for him, on a personal note,” Francona said. “If we can get him (hot) this last eight or 10 days, wow, that would help.”

(Photo: Katie Stratman / Imagn Images)