CINCINNATI \u2014\u00a0Elly De La Cruz hopes to represent his home country of the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic at some point, but it won\u2019t be in 2026.<\/p>\n
At this weekend\u2019s Redsfest, De La Cruz said he wanted to participate in the WBC, but the Cincinnati Reds didn\u2019t give him permission to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the team\u2019s choice. I was dealing with the quad (injury), and they didn\u2019t want me to play,\u201d De La Cruz said. \u201cI want to play. I want to represent my country. But I believe in the team. I definitely want to play (in the WBC) in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
De La Cruz, who turned 24 on Sunday, played in all 162 games for the Reds last season but spent the second half of the season dealing with a quad injury, something that hampered his production.<\/p>\n
In his All-Star-worthy first half, De La Cruz hit .284\/.359\/.495 with 18 home runs and 25 stolen bases. In the second half, he hit .236\/.303\/.363 with four home runs and 12 steals. De La Cruz went 30 games without a home run from June 24 to July 30, and after hitting his 19th home run of the season on July 31, he didn\u2019t hit his 20th until Sept. 19.<\/p>\n
Friday, De La Cruz said the quad has healed this offseason.<\/p>\n
At the Winter Meetings last month, Reds manager Terry Francona said he needed to find ways to keep De La Cruz fresh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t do a very good job of that, and I own up to that,\u201d Francona said. \u201cI love the fact that he wants to play, and he\u2019s one of the rare guys where he can bring energy every day, which is really amazing. But saying that, he gets beat up so much. Sometimes the day game after the night game might be really helpful for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
De La Cruz joked that he\u2019d \u201cfight\u201d Francona to play every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he makes that decision, there\u2019s nothing I can do about it,\u201d De La Cruz said. \u201cMaybe we can fight and see who wins.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although it was obvious throughout the second half of the season that De La Cruz wasn\u2019t the same dynamic player he\u2019s been throughout his career, he has steadfastly refused to use his health to explain his struggles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have an excuse for how my season was,\u201d De La Cruz said.<\/p>\n
That said, he said it was a learning experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I learned is that I have to take care of myself before the game, after the game, in the field, outside of the field \u2014 everywhere. I take responsibility for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reds closer Emilio Pag\u00e1n, a member of Puerto Rico\u2019s WBC teams in 2017 and 2023, said he is not participating in the tournament this year either. Pag\u00e1n, who was second in the National League with 32 saves in 2025, signed a two-year, $20 million free-agent deal with the Reds in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014\u00a0Elly De La Cruz hopes to represent his home country of the Dominican Republic in the World…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":521903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,5048,2961,224,5337,1266],"class_list":{"0":"post-521902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-cincinnati-reds","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115908445765091838","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}