{"id":139414,"date":"2025-06-29T11:40:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T11:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/139414\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T11:40:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T11:40:17","slug":"why-cincinnati-reds-elly-de-la-cruz-declined-home-run-derby-invitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/139414\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Cincinnati Reds’ Elly De La Cruz declined Home Run Derby invitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Elly De La Cruz talks Reds’ win over Yankees<\/p>\n

Cincinnati Reds SS Elly De La Cruz upstaged Aaron Judge and the Yankees for the second year in a row, going 3-for-4 with a HR, 3B in Monday’s opener.<\/p>\n

Someday Elly De La Cruz<\/a> wants to participate in the All-Star Home Run Derby.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time is going to come,\u201d he said. \u201cBut not now.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the third time in as many seasons in the big leagues, the Reds young star declined an invitation to participate in the Derby.<\/p>\n

The grueling nature of the contest, which some past participants suggested had a lingering fatigue effect coming out of the All-Star week, was one factor, he said, as well as the desire to keep his focus on helping the Reds win.<\/p>\n

This time around, the event comes just weeks after the loss of his sister following a long illness. And if he isn\u2019t selected to the National League All-Star team, it gives him an opportunity to be home with family for a few days.<\/p>\n

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A player is not required to be selected to an All-Star team to be eligible to participate in the Home Run Derby.<\/p>\n

De La Cruz, who finished third in All-Star fan voting for NL shortstops, reached the halfway point in the season this week hitting .277 with 18 home runs, 55 RBIs and an .862 OPS.<\/p>\n

He has played in all 81 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elly De La Cruz talks Reds’ win over Yankees Cincinnati Reds SS Elly De La Cruz upstaged Aaron…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[1482,5,489,535,50,4259,481,1166,1164,845,1163,1177,14,1165,4,13669,846,169,1174,1182,300,850,43,536,844,18,482,185,317],"class_list":{"0":"post-139414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-all-star","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-central","11":"tag-cincinnati","12":"tag-cincinnati-reds","13":"tag-cincinnatireds","14":"tag-content","15":"tag-cruz","16":"tag-de","17":"tag-diego","18":"tag-elly","19":"tag-elly-de-la-cruz","20":"tag-game","21":"tag-la","22":"tag-mlb","23":"tag-mlb-all-star-game","24":"tag-neutral","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-oh","27":"tag-oh-content-sharing-reds-central","28":"tag-overall","29":"tag-overall-neutral","30":"tag-padres","31":"tag-reds","32":"tag-san","33":"tag-san-diego-padres","34":"tag-sharing","35":"tag-sports","36":"tag-sports-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114766468317188997","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}