Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz has struggled offensively over his last 74 games. He is batting .240 with 7 home runs and 28 RBIs. The statistics declined sharply from the first half of 2025. In 97 games, he hit .284 with 18 home runs and 63 RBI.

In August 2025, he and the Reds attributed the slump to his tendency to swing at pitches outside the zone.

“I’ve been swinging at bad pitches lately, but that’s on me. They’re just doing their job,” De La Cruz said of opposing pitchers. “I’ve got to do mine.”

“I don’t get too caught up in that,” manager Terry Francona recently said. “You want to see good at-bats. He’s an ultra-aggressive kid to begin with. Sometimes he starts chasing a little, on the breaking ball that’s out of the zone. But when he gets pitches in [the zone], he’s usually OK. And I also think he gets pitched really tough, as most good hitters do.”

While De La Cruz and Francona’s explanations have merit, the struggles are more complex. Elly De La Cruz’s struggles stem from a revised game plan and altered batting stance. After the 2025 All-Star break, pitchers offered more changeups.

Since August 2025, he has faced 160 changeups, comprising 16.2% of pitches. In 2023–2024, he faced 684 changeups, amounting to 15.1% of all pitches.

Most changeups thrown to Elly De La Cruz land outside the strike zone. On August 12, 2025, during a home game against the Philadelphia Phillies, he batted right-handed against Ranger Suarez in the bottom of the third inning. 

Ranger Suarez threw a changeup low and inside. Elly De La Cruz made contact off the end of his bat, resulting in a short fly ball to right field, which was caught by the Phillies’ second baseman. 

Such outcomes are typical. Elly De La Cruz has faced 1,184 career changeups, and 64.2% missed the strike zone.To counter the rise in changeups, De La Cruz likely widened his stance from both sides of the plate.

Before the 2025 All-Star break, Elly’s left-handed stance was 17 degrees open, and his right-handed stance was 15 degrees. After the break, he widened his left-handed stance to 25 degrees and his right-handed stance to 17 degrees.

The open stance gives hitters a broader view of incoming pitches, aiding pitch recognition. In 2023 and 2024, De La Cruz hit .238 with three home runs and 46 strikeouts.

He improved his batting average by 92 percentage points in 2025 and 2026, posting a .330 mark with two home runs and 24 strikeouts.

However, the stance change hurt his effectiveness against fastballs. Over his career, De La Cruz has encountered fastballs in half of his plate appearances. In 2023 and 2024, he hit .278 against them, tallying 27 home runs and 160 strikeouts.

His fastball performance declined in 2025 and 2026, as he is now hitting .256 with 17 home runs and 76 strikeouts. The performance decline has occurred because he is not seeing fastballs inside. For instance, as a left-handed batter, only 4 out of 42 have been fastballs inside during the 2026 season.

On March 31st 2026, he faced Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Yohan Ramirez in the fifth inning. Ramirez threw a fastball just outside the strike zone. Due to his adjusted stance he was barely able to reach the ball for a foul tip that ended up in the catcher’s glove.

The stance change has made it harder for him to reach fastballs on the outer half. As a result, his adjustment to hitting changeups has been counterproductive, hurting his ability to hit the more common pitch. For this reason, I recommend that he return to his prior, narrower stance and avoid further changes.