This story was excerpted from Mark Sheldon’s Reds Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Back on Aug. 11, after he was hit by a pitch on his lower left leg, Reds second baseman Jonathan India was airlifted from an Iowa cornfield to a hospital when his injury appeared more serious. Two weeks ago in Philadelphia, India had to be taken out of a game because of the lingering pain in the same leg.

Some people clamored that India should be shut down for the season or be put on the injured list. Meanwhile, India just kept hitting. After he missed three games following the Field of Dreams game vs. the Cubs, he put together a 16-game hitting streak. It ended in Game 2 of Sunday’s doubleheader vs. the Rockies when he fouled a ball off the same left shin that’s been bothering him.

Since returning to the lineup after Iowa, India is slashing .324/.418/.485 with two home runs and eight RBIs in 18 games. In Friday’s 3-2 win over the Rockies, the 25-year-old delivered the first walk-off hit of his career in the bottom of the ninth inning. On Sunday in Game 1 vs. Colorado, he hit a 447-foot homer, the longest by a Reds player in 2022. 

“It feels amazing. This is the player I am,” India said on Friday. “I know I'm able to do these things in this game. I know I'm good enough to play at this level and just had unfortunate events this year happen to me, injuries. It was tough for the first three, four months and I was out for a while so just had to get back in the swing of things and just trust who I was again, rather than try to be something else. I'm being that player again.”

The reigning National League Rookie of the Year, India missed 48 games over two stints on the IL from April-June because of a right hamstring strain. In 40 games before the All-Star break, he was batting only .231/.290/.346 with four homers.

Besides the injuries, the Reds' rebuilding program weighed heavily on India. Cincinnati lost Nick Castellanos to free agency last winter and traded Eugenio Suárez and Jesse Winker to the Mariners in March as Spring Training opened.

“To be honest with you, I was trying to make up for a lot of guys that we lost,” India said. “We lost a lot of big-time bats in our lineup. I started thinking the spotlight was on me to do the damage and do more of it. We're missing Castellanos, Winker, Suárez, all these guys that do damage in the lineup. They weren't there, so I was like, ‘I've got to pick up the slack a little, hit for more power.’ It got me in trouble. Now I'm just getting back to my game, hitting the ball hard wherever it's pitched.”