Steamboat Elly: De La Cruz parks HR on a ship!

CINCINNATI — Pirates of yore were known for sinking ships. But none of them likely could have ever boasted about hitting a riverboat.

De La Cruz had three hits and three RBIs on a night that included a mammoth two-run home run driven into Great American Ball Park’s riverboat deck above center field. That was the exclamation point for the Reds’ 11-5 series-opening victory over Pittsburgh on Monday.

“We were talking about it in batting practice. We were talking that it’s hard to do,” De La Cruz said.

The lead was already 9-3 in the sixth inning with Jonathan India on second base after an RBI double when De La Cruz slugged Daulton Jefferies’ 1-0 cutter. It was a towering shot that landed on the riverboat perched above the batter’s eye for his 14th homer of the season. Statcast projected the drive at 439 feet with a 111.5 mph exit velocity.

Talk about timing, India had challenged De La Cruz to try for the boat just a few hours earlier in the day.

Guess what? Challenge accepted.

“All day we were messing around with each other, seeing how hard we could hit it and if I could hit it harder than him,” India said. “I was getting him in BP. He was like, ‘No way, man. You can’t hit it harder than me.’ I was like, ‘You can’t even hit the boat.’ Then he did it in the game. I was in awe at second base. I couldn’t believe he did it.”

Reds starting pitcher Carson Spiers, who earned his first big league win, was sitting in the dugout next to pitching coach Derek Johnson and debuting rookie Levi Jordan when he called the shot.

“Nobody is going to believe me … I said this ball is going to go a long way. Sure enough, it went a long way,” said Spiers, who worked six innings for a quality start and allowed three earned runs with seven hits, one walk and five strikeouts. “You don’t see too many guys able to do that. That’s a wild moment for sure.”

Following an extended slump, De La Cruz has been on a big upswing. In his last 10 games since June 14, he’s batting .385 with a 1.262 OPS, three homers, three doubles and two triples.

“Just being the same and keep a good mentality,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday, tomorrow. Today is a new day. You just have to keep going.”

Ranked third again among National League shortstops in the latest All-Star balloting update, De La Cruz finished Monday a triple shy of hitting for the second cycle of his career. With the leading vote-getter at the position, the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts, out with a fractured left hand, De La Cruz has an improved chance of becoming a first-time All-Star.

“Like I’ve said before, I want to go. But I don’t think about it. I just play every day,” De La Cruz said.

Also earlier in the day, the Reds lost center fielder and leadoff man TJ Friedl to the injured list for the third time this season — this time with a right hamstring strain.

How’s this for picking up a fallen teammate? During an 11-run output, the top two of the Reds’ lineup — India and De La Cruz — combined to go 6-for-9 with six runs and four RBIs. And the player who was called up to replace Friedl on the roster — Jordan — notched his first big league hit with a sixth-inning double, his first run scored and his first RBI on a sacrifice fly during a five-run fourth inning.

“It’s very tough to lose him,” India said. “He’s a huge part of our lineup. All you can do is have his back, be there for him and try to help him get healthy because we need him. We’ll do our best without him right now.”

As impressive as De La Cruz’s homer was, he did other feats to draw raves. Cincinnati’s lead was 5-3 in the fifth inning when he hit a grounder through the middle and hustled into second base for an RBI double with a headfirst slide as India scored.

“The ball hit the [second baseman’s] glove and it was softer. I just kept going,” De La Cruz said.

De La Cruz also made some nifty defensive plays. To open the sixth, he nabbed Nick Gonzales’ hard grounder to the hole and made a one-hop throw to first base for the out.

“The plays he makes on defense, it’s unreal,” Spiers said. “We as teammates take it for granted, but it is truly special.”