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The Cincinnati Reds went 10-17 during the month of May, dropping from first in the NL Central to last, making this a terrible time for them to lose their most important player. Unfortunately, that’s precisely what happened on Monday, when shortstop Elly De La Cruz landed on the injured list for the first time in his career after straining his hamstring on Sunday. Now in his fourth big league season, De La Cruz was hitting .280/.346/.509 with 12 homers and a 134 wRC+ in 58 games, and looked to be on his way to making his third consecutive All-Star team. His 2.7 WAR was enough to lead all National League shortstops and rank second in the majors at the position, behind Bobby Witt Jr.. Minor league infielder Edwin Arroyo was called up from Triple-A Louisville to take De La Cruz’s place on the roster.

While it’s never good news to see your superstar miss time, the silver lining is this is not a season-risking injury. After limping while running the bases on a fifth-inning single on Sunday against the Braves, De La Cruz immediately came out of the game and underwent an MRI the next day. Manager Terry Francona described the results as “kind of between a Grade 1 and a Grade 2” strain. For those without the weirdly specific knowledge of muscle strain terminology, Grade 1 typically refers to a mild strain and Grade 2, a partial tear. So this is more than just a “Rub some dirt on it and get back in the game” thing, but less than a “Crap, do we have to look up Jose Iglesias’ phone number?” diagnosis. The initial prognosis is that De La Cruz will be out for two-to-four weeks.

The Reds may have been a little spoiled with De La Cruz’s good health to date. It’s been almost exactly three years since he debuted with the Reds, and in that time, he’s been out of the lineup just seven times, including Monday night’s loss to the Royals. It’s a good thing, too. De La Cruz has nearly half the team’s position-player WAR so far in 2026 (2.7 WAR of 5.7 team WAR), and he lapped the other Cincinnati hitters in both 2025 and 2024, as well. He’s good enough that the Reds offered him a contract extension that would have been the largest in team history, even bigger than Joey Votto’s $225 million deal, and good enough to turn it down without looking crazy.

Despite currently standing in last place, the Reds are still hanging around .500, and therefore are still very much in the wild card race, meaning that even losing a game off their rest-of-season record could come back and haunt them later. ZiPS knocks about 1.7% off Cincinnati’s playoff probability if De La Cruz misses a full month (14.7% to 13.0%), and while that isn’t much, it amounts to 10% of the team’s playoff scenarios. You’d much rather gain 1.7% than lose it, after all! The Reds have gotten pretty poor offensive performance from five positions: catcher (28th), second base (24th), third base (30th), center field (22nd), and right field (27th). Ace Hunter Greene is not back from injury yet, and the back of the rotation has been a problem, so this is an especially awful time for Cincinnati to lose its best player.

That said, this injury finally forced the Reds to call up Arroyo, which I think they should have done even if De La Cruz hadn’t gotten hurt. He’s been a prospect for a long time; he was one of the principals from the 2022 trade that sent Luis Castillo to the Mariners. ZiPS always liked Arroyo, placing him 59th on the 2023 ZiPS Top 100 prospects list and 33rd in 2024. The only reason he dropped to 92nd in 2025 was because he had shoulder surgery and missed the entire 2024 season. He didn’t return to the top 100 list this preseason after posting a rather meh .284/.345/.371 line at Double-A in 2025, but at least he was healthy.

This year, on the other hand, has been a lot more positive for him. Beginning the season in Triple-A, Arroyo slashed .323/.383/.562 in 53 games, good for a 143 wRC+. His 11 home runs are well ahead of the three he hit last year in twice as many games, and he’s three shy of matching his professional season high from 2022. While there’s a lot of air to take out of untranslated minor league numbers, Arroyo’s .286/.342/.482 ZiPS translation is still a darn good line. Now, we shouldn’t expect Arroyo to precisely match this level of performance going forward in the majors, but he should still make for a valuable addition to a Cincinnati team that desperately needs an offensive boost. The basic ZiPS in-season model, which doesn’t factor in his minor league performance this year, gives Arroyo a 75 wRC+ projection for the rest of the season. But the full-fat model, which does account for his production this year in the minors, projects him to slash .260/.320/.385 (97 wRC+) and put up 1.7 WAR over the rest of season in the majors.

To be clear, losing De La Cruz for even a short amount of time is devastating for the Reds. No rhetorical device or distracting Szymborski-coded historical anecdote could change that. Even so, Arroyo has played well enough at Triple-A that he deserves a full audition in the majors, and if he takes advantage of this opportunity, he could emerge as the productive bat that Cincinnati has been missing. If that’s the case, and if the team can remain in the playoff race during De La Cruz’s absence, then calling up Arroyo could benefit the Reds both down the stretch this season and in the future.