At Great American Ball Park, the early innings of a new year carried an old tension for elly de la cruz: the split-second decisions that create highlight plays and the long season that turns flashes into awards. The Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox had already split two games, and Sunday’s rubber match arrived with a familiar test—can a player be both electric and steady when every at-bat is read as evidence?
What happened in the Reds-Red Sox opening series—and how did elly de la cruz look?
The Red Sox and Reds split their first two games of the 2026 season before Sunday’s matchup at 1: 40 p. m. ET. In those first two contests, elly de la cruz struck out twice in each game, a reminder that early-season timing can cut both ways for a hitter whose game invites extremes. Still, the production was not empty: he went 2-for-8 with two walks and a home run while playing shortstop, blending outcome and process in a small sample that nevertheless drew attention.
The tension in that line—strikeouts alongside on-base moments and power—helps explain why predictions around him are so loud. The case being argued isn’t that everything is already perfect, but that the foundation is unusually broad: offense that can change a game in one swing, plus speed and defense that affect every inning.
Why are analysts predicting an MVP leap for Elly De La Cruz?
One of the clearest public arguments for an MVP trajectory came from Brian Kenny, an MLB Network host, who framed the appeal in terms of total impact. “If there’s somebody that can combine everything with the speed… a guy who can have an eight-win season that might challenge Ohtani, I think it’s Elly De La Cruz, ” Kenny said. Kenny also added a note of restraint: “Look, he’s got to bolster his numbers. But with his baserunning runs and his defense at shortstop, I think he has a really good case. ”
That framing matters because it places the spotlight not only on home runs or batting average, but on the full portfolio of value—baserunning, defense, and the cumulative pressure applied across nine innings. It also acknowledges that the bar is high in the National League, where Shohei Ohtani has captured the NL MVP award in back-to-back years since leaving the Los Angeles Angels for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In the MVP market listed by DraftKings Sportsbook, Ohtani stood as a -140 favorite to win NL MVP. Elly De La Cruz was listed at +2500, matching New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, behind Juan Soto (+700), Ronald Acuna Jr. (+1000), and Fernando Tatis Jr. (+2000). The prices are a snapshot of expectation, not a guarantee, but they underline how much projection is built into the conversation around him.
Is the 40/40 club realistic for elly de la cruz—and what does health have to do with it?
Another strand of the story is about ceilings, not just trophies. Thomas Nestico of TJStats included a bold prediction that elly de la cruz would hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases, joining an exclusive group associated with Barry Bonds, Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, and Jose Canseco. The claim is explicit and ambitious: 40 home runs is “a lot, ” Nestico wrote, but he argued that the tools and environment could support it.
Nestico tied the forecast to a concrete turning point from last season: “With 18 home runs in his first 97 games, Elly De La Cruz was pacing for his first 30 home run season. Unfortunately, he had a second half to forget after a quad injury sapped his power and turned him into a shell of himself, ” he wrote, adding that “with a full offseason to recover” the Reds shortstop “has all the tools to be baseball’s next 40-40 player. ”
The injury context is central, because the 2025 season contained both promise and disruption. Kenny made a similar MVP prediction last season, but Elly De La Cruz finished at. 264/. 336/. 440 with 22 home runs and 4. 3 fWAR. He also played through a partially torn left quad suffered in the second half, and his OPS dropped to. 666 after the All-Star break. The contrast between the first half and the post-injury stretch shaped how many evaluators now talk about “a healthy” version of the player as a different category of threat.
The baseline athleticism is already visible in verified performance markers from 2024, described as his last fully healthy season in this context: he stole 67 bases and recorded 14 outs above average at shortstop. Those numbers point to why a 40 stolen-base threshold is treated as plausible in the prediction, and why the larger debate often returns to whether the power can hold across the calendar.
What comes next for Elly De La Cruz as the season begins?
The immediate next chapter was practical rather than theoretical: the Red Sox, with Connelly Early noted as part of the Sunday matchup context, would “look to contain” De La Cruz in the series’ rubber game. Containment, in baseball terms, can mean challenging a hitter’s patience, controlling the running game, and forcing outcomes at the margins—exactly the areas that can decide whether early strikeouts are a temporary blip or a pattern opponents exploit.
For the Reds, the opening week also becomes a referendum on resilience: can the player who played through a partially torn left quad now translate offseason recovery into consistent production? The public predictions—MVP talk, 40/40 projections—set a storyline that can motivate, distract, or simply hover. What cannot be skipped is the everyday work of converting speed, defense, and raw ability into the “numbers” even supporters concede must rise.
Back at Great American Ball Park, the scene that began with a few April at-bats now holds a sharper meaning. A home run and two walks share space with four strikeouts across two games, and the season is too young to declare anything final. But the conversation has already begun in earnest: whether elly de la cruz will be defined by the volatility of his first week—or by the kind of healthy, comprehensive impact that makes an MVP prediction feel less like a projection and more like a forecast.
