Elly De La Cruz Joins Rare Reds Company With 30-30 Season in Loss to Blue Jays

Elly De La Cruz stole third base in the third inning at Rogers Centre on Friday night, and with that unremarkable-looking slide he became the fourth player in Cincinnati Reds history to record a 30-home run, 30-stolen base season. The moment arrived in a game the Reds would go on to lose, 6-5, to a Toronto Blue Jays team that, like Cincinnati, had already been eliminated from postseason contention. The milestone was the story regardless of the final score.

De La Cruz's 30th steal came one pitch after he drove in two runs with a double to left field, part of a third inning in which Cincinnati briefly wrested control of the game. He had already banked his 30th home run of the season a night earlier in Atlanta, against the Braves, which meant Friday's game was always going to turn on whether he could add the final stolen base to complete the pairing. He got it on the first pitch to the next batter, sliding in headfirst, according to the official account posted by MLB.com's Reds beat.

The numbers

De La Cruz finishes the milestone chase with a season line of 30 home runs, 30 stolen bases, a .285 batting average and an .888 OPS built on a .367 on-base percentage and .521 slugging mark, with 79 RBIs, according to his official player page on MLB.com. He compiled those numbers in roughly 141 games, having lost close to three weeks in-season to a hamstring strain. Statcast data hosted on Baseball Savant places his hard-hit rate in the 95th percentile among qualified hitters this year, with his sprint speed and outs-above-average grades both in the upper reaches of the league, the combination that makes the 30-30 season plausible rather than a statistical accident.

He is also, by at least one measure, matching a 30-year-old standard: De La Cruz has 30 doubles to go with the homers and steals, a combination the franchise has not produced since Barry Larkin's 1996 season, according to figures cited in Redleg Nation's recap of Friday's game. Leaguewide, he becomes roughly the 82nd player in major league history to reach 30-30 in a season, joining a small class this year that already included the Cubs' Pete Crow-Armstrong, who went a step further and reached 40-40, and the Nationals' CJ Abrams. The final line, box score and play-by-play from Friday's game are preserved in the official MLB Gameday record and in ESPN's box score.

How Cincinnati got here

The milestone landed inside a season the Reds themselves have mostly wanted to forget. Cincinnati opened 2026 atop the National League Central for the season's first month, then went into a prolonged slide, playing roughly .420 baseball from May onward. The low point came on September 11, when the Reds lost 20-0 to the division-leading Milwaukee Brewers, the worst shutout defeat in the franchise's history. By the time De La Cruz reached 30-30 on Friday, Cincinnati had already been mathematically eliminated from the postseason, on track to miss October for a second consecutive year after reaching the wild card round in 2025.

Toronto, De La Cruz's opponent Friday, arrived at the same fate from a different direction. The defending American League champions were eliminated from playoff contention on September 23 following a loss to the Baltimore Orioles, as MLB.com reported at the time, meaning both clubs were playing out the schedule's final week with nothing beyond individual and developmental stakes on the line. That backdrop is part of why De La Cruz's pursuit of the milestone drew outsized attention in Cincinnati and Toronto alike over the past several days — one of the only remaining storylines with real consequence in either city's baseball season.

Who is affected

For the Reds, the achievement is a rare bright thread in an otherwise discouraging year, and it reinforces the club's long-stated bet that De La Cruz, still 24, is the foundational piece around which the next competitive Cincinnati team gets built. The 30-30 season also carries symbolic weight inside the organization: he joins Eric Davis (1987), Larkin (1996) and Brandon Phillips (2007) as the only Reds players to do it, a list that includes a Hall of Famer and two of the most popular position players of their eras in Cincinnati. For De La Cruz personally, the season adds to an All-Star résumé — he was selected in both 2024 and 2025 and led the National League in stolen bases in 2024 — and arrives at a moment when his long-term extension talks with the club are expected to intensify this winter.

Blue Jays fans, and the broader American League, are more incidental to the story, though Toronto's pitching staff and bullpen were the ones who briefly held, then lost, a lead against him Friday, blowing a 5-2 Cincinnati advantage before rallying for the win in the late innings.

Reaction

De La Cruz, who has generally kept a low-key public presence relative to his statistical impact, was direct about what the season meant to him afterward.

"It's really special. That means a great season. To hit for power and have speed and be able to steal bases like that, it's a pretty special thing to do," De La Cruz said, according to Yahoo Sports' report from Toronto.

Manager Terry Francona, who has managed De La Cruz through an uneven developmental arc over the past two seasons, framed the accomplishment as evidence of maturing all-around play rather than raw tools alone, pointing in particular to defensive gains at shortstop this year. Earlier in the week, as De La Cruz closed in on the milestone, Francona had allowed himself a small wish for more: "I wish he could get 40-40. It's probably a little late. But that would be fun to watch." Bench coach Mike Napoli, addressing De La Cruz's standing in the clubhouse rather than the numbers, said simply that "his teammates love him. He loves his teammates, and he plays the game the right way."

What happens next

Cincinnati and Toronto both have a small handful of games left before the 2026 regular season closes this weekend, with neither club's remaining results carrying playoff weight. For the Reds, the offseason agenda is now largely set: evaluate a pitching staff and bullpen that collapsed repeatedly down the stretch, including in Friday's loss, and decide how aggressively to build around De La Cruz as the roster's clearest asset. Francona's aside about a 40-40 season suggests the club will not discourage him from pushing further in that direction next year, though De La Cruz's own health record — the hamstring strain that cost him three weeks this season chief among recent issues — will factor into how the coaching staff manages his workload and stolen-base attempts going forward. Extension talks, dormant for much of a season consumed by the team's collapse, are expected to resume once the Reds turn to their winter planning.