De La Cruz (4 hits, HR), Votto (HR, 3 RBIs) lead Reds back into 1st

LOS ANGELES -- On the day they saw both their youngest hitter (Elly De La Cruz) and their oldest hitter (Joey Votto) emerge from their offensive funks, a lot of good things happened for the Reds.

It was a critical win for Cincinnati on Sunday afternoon as it cruised to a 9-0 victory over the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. It gave the Reds two of three games in the series and lifted them back into first place in the National League Central by a half-game over the Brewers, who were swept by the Braves in a three-game weekend set.

"Everyone contributed. When you have your leadoff guy [getting on], and then the next guy up driving him in, that sets the tone for the day," Votto said. "We did the very best we could to stay on the attack and move toward a win."

De La Cruz went 4-for-5, with his first-inning single to right field starting a big rally against Dodgers starter Michael Grove. TJ Friedl followed with an RBI double to right field, and five batters into the afternoon, Cincinnati had a 4-0 lead.

With two outs in the second inning against Grove, De La Cruz blistered a 1-1 pitch to right field with a 111.3 mph exit velocity. He added a single in the fourth and eighth innings.

The 21-year-old De La Cruz's offensive production plummeted coming out of the All-Star break. Entering Sunday, he was batting .123 (7-for-57) with a .474 OPS, two homers, three RBIs and 25 strikeouts in his past 15 games. There were no multihit games in that span. In the first 30 games of his career, De La Cruz batted .325 with an .887 OPS and four homers.

“There’s always going to be bad times when you’re going up to bat," De La Cruz said via translator Jorge Merlos. "You just have to make those adjustments to make it seem like it’s going to break out. Sure enough, eventually, you’re going to turn the tide and make it work out.”

To get him and the overall offense going, manager David Bell moved De La Cruz from batting fourth to leading off. Until this weekend, results have been sparse, but De La Cruz did open Friday's 6-5 win over Los Angeles with a triple and scored the game's first run.

"You never want to see our players go through a tough stretch. When you’ve been around the game, you know they’re going to go through that," Bell said. "Most importantly, you want to see how they handle it. His confidence hasn’t wavered at all. He has continued to do what he needs to do. For that reason, there’s really no concern."

There's no minimizing that De La Cruz's presence has helped the Reds. They were 27-33 when he was promoted to the big leagues on June 6 and are 31-16 since.

"He’s such a great player, such a great athlete," said starting pitcher Graham Ashcraft, who allowed five hits with no walks and two strikeouts in six innings. "There’s going to be many more times that he’s going to have to [struggle] like that. For him to figure it out and kind of get out of it, that’s part of the learning process with him being so young. That’s what is going to allow him to make that adjustment sooner next time.”

In the fourth inning, fellow rookie Matt McLain lifted a high homer into the bullpen in left field. With one out, Votto clobbered Grove's 2-1 pitch for a two-run homer to right field. At 111.2 mph, it was his hardest-hit ball of the season.

Votto was robbed of a second homer in the fifth inning when James Outman made a leaping catch on his drive to right-center field. He added a run-scoring double in the ninth.

Votto, 39, entered the finale batting .102 (5-for-49) with one homer over his past 15 games, but like the younger De La Cruz, he wasn't in crisis over his struggles.

"As long as I continue to drive the strikeouts down, I don't even think about it," Votto said. "Ask the hitting people: I've worked every day. I need to get out there and continue to put the ball in play. More importantly, I'm being put in positions where there's winning moments in the game, and those can really kind of expedite that."

Votto has also watched De La Cruz do the daily work needed to break slumps.

"He's motivated to get better, and I think that's going to drive him to reach his potential," Votto said. "So today was exactly why everyone is so excited to tune in to watch him -- and us -- play."