Reds 11, Diamondbacks 5: Bleday Hits for the Cycle, Elly Adds Four Hits

Double, triple, single, then the fence

August 22, 2026 - Phoenix - JJ Bleday doubled in a run in the first, tripled in another in the third, singled in the fourth, and led off the sixth with a line drive over the right-field wall.

That is a cycle in four at-bats. The Cincinnati Reds piled up 16 hits and beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 11-5. Elly De La Cruz also finished with four hits. Chase Field did not get quiet until late, and even then only because the visitors had already done the loud work.

Soroka never found the exit ramp

Michael Soroka (8-4) lasted 3 1/3 innings and was charged with six runs on six hits. Bleday's double and triple both came off him. The Reds kept stacking traffic. By the time Zach Littell entered, the deficit already looked like a chase that would not pay.

Bleday greeted Littell with the single that completed every hit type except the homer. Then he led off the sixth and finished the cycle with his 21st homer of the season, a career high after a 20-homer year with Oakland in 2024. He nearly went deep again in the seventh. Ryan Waldschmidt ran one down at the wall. He struck out in the ninth. The first four trips were the ones that will live in the clip package.

It was the fourth cycle in MLB this season, joining Pete Crow-Armstrong, Bryce Harper, and Tristan Peters. De La Cruz owned the previous Cincinnati cycle, against Atlanta in 2023. On Saturday he settled for a four-hit night that still included a 450-foot homer to right in the fifth, his 21st.

Elly, Héctor, and a 16-hit night

De La Cruz needed a triple to match Bleday's cycle. He did not get it. Four hits and a moonshot still make a shortstop page hard to ignore. Matt McLain added his 13th homer. Rookie Héctor Rodríguez hit his first career homer in the seventh.

Rhett Lowder (5-8) gave Cincinnati six innings and four runs. That is not a dominant card on its own. Behind 16 hits and two players stacking four-hit games, it did not need to be. Nolan Arenado and Tim Tawa homered for Arizona. Gabriel Moreno stretched a hitting streak to 15 games with a ninth-inning double. None of it flipped the shape of the night.

AthX Engine saw a Reds bat night, not a pitching board

AthX Engine put Cincinnati at 20 team fantasy points, second on the slate behind only Philadelphia. Bleday led the Reds' hitters at 14 fantasy points. De La Cruz scored 12. Rodríguez scored 10 on the first-career blast and the rest of the night. Fantasy points measure the box. Price is a separate market number.

What's next

Andrew Abbott faces Mitch Bratt in the series finale. Cycles do not show up every week. Four-hit nights from De La Cruz do not either. AthX Engine will keep both pages open after a Saturday when Cincinnati's bats wrote the whole story.

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*Sources: ESPN recap, ESPN box score, MLB schedule, AthX Engine scoring. Information only; not financial advice.*