MINNEAPOLIS – No sooner had a media insider asked Cincinnati Reds manager David Bell if his All-Star shortstop needed a day off than Elly De La Cruz stepped on stage Friday night and delivered another career first.

“I’m not tired,” he said after proving it.

The kid who hit a cycle in his 15th major game last year and is already having a rare 20-home, 60-steal season this year hit his first career grand slam in the seventh inning on Friday.

“It feels so good,” he said. “It means a lot to me. It’s the first of many.”

The slam capped a six-run inning that helped the Reds to an 8-4 victory over the playoff-bound Minnesota Twins in the opener of a three-game series at the end of a long four-city road trip for the Reds.

It may have come as a surprise to some that De La Cruz had never scored a Grand Slam in any of his 244 previous matches.

“I didn’t realize that,” Bell said. “It seems he did.”

De La Cruz could play all 13 of the Reds’ remaining games of the season to secure a second-place finish.

He has started every game on this long journey and is tied for the most games played in the National League, having missed just two of the Reds’ 149 games.

“I’m fine. I’ll play every day,” said De La Cruz, who has three days off for the team in 11 days starting Monday.

In his final 11 games before the Twins series, he was just 7 of 41 (.171) with 21 strikeouts and four extra-base hits.

He also leads the majors with 197 strikeouts (second on the Reds’ all-time single-season list, behind Drew Stubbs’ 205 in 2011). That included five Ks in his last seven at-bats through Friday.

Tired, right? You need a day off, right?

Maybe De La Cruz heard Bell and the media talking about the day off before the game?

“We?” Bell said when asked about the discussion after the game. “I didn’t say he needed a day off.”

“He plays with a lot of energy and he plays hard. He takes care of himself. I know he’s played a lot of innings and games, the All-Star Game. We’ll watch everyone closely and if someone needs it, we’ll definitely give them a day off. But he’s proven that just by being on the field, he helps us win games.”

So what’s next for a player who has this cycle in the first 245 games of his career, including five four-hit games, one four-hit, four-steal game, and one game in which he stole three bases in three pitches in one inning?

“I don’t know? Walk-off?” De La Cruz said. We never know what happens next.

Notes on Cincinnati Reds-Minnesota Twins

The grand slam, De La Cruz’s 24th home run of the season, was also his 100th career extra-base hit. He has 99 steals and was on the line when Jonathan India singled to end the Reds’ ninth inning, missing what could have been a final chance to snag his 100th home run on Friday. No player in MLB history has ever recorded his 100th extra-base hit and his 100th steal in the same game.

… It’s hard to believe, but the Reds improved to 31-18 in openers this season (and in make-up games like Monday in Atlanta) entering Friday, the best record in the major leagues in such games this season. The Phillies had a 31-18 record in openers until Friday’s loss to the Mets.

… Reds rookie starter Julian Aguiar (2-0, 4.88 ERA) pitched 6 1/3 innings in his sixth major league start. It was his longest with one out and only the second in which he went five innings.

…Reds center fielder TJ Friedl, who hit 3 for 4, opened the Reds’ scoring with a solo home run, his 12th, over the right-field wall in the second inning and scored on a bunt single in the seventh to bring home the Reds’ second run. It was the first time Friedl — who had 17 home runs and 17 bunt hits last year — hit a home run and a bunt single in the same game since he did it twice last year (April 2 against the Pirates and June 27 against the Orioles). “I’ll take those. I’ll take them all,” said Friedl, who also has one game each of the past two years with a home run and an infield hit at full swing (June 14 against the Brewers this year and June 28 against the O’s last year). The Reds have won 5-0 in those two seasons when Friedl hits a ball over the fence and also reaches a ball that doesn’t leave the infield.

This article originally appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds’ Elly De La Cruz records another career first