Twins manager Rocco Baldelli heaped compliments upon Reds star Elly De La Cruz in the hours before Friday night’s game, describing the speedy, powerful shortstop as “phenomenal.”

“He makes you change the way you play the game,” Baldelli said pregame. “You have to be resigned to that fact, and you have to figure out a way to make the plays and beat them.”

And on Friday, the Twins weren’t able to do that.

De La Cruz had the big swing on Friday, hitting a grand slam as part of a six-run seventh inning to help the Reds pull away from the Twins in an eventual 8-4 win in the series opener at Target Field.

“We’re in the game and then, all of a sudden, you’re not in the game,” Baldelli said. “You give up all those runs in one swing, that’s going to be hard.”

The Reds’ (72-77) seventh-inning outburst came after they had been held mostly quiet by starter Bailey Ober during the early parts of the game. A TJ Friedl second-inning home run aside, Ober cruised through much of his outing, using his changeup to help stymie the Reds. Ober got 16 of his 20 swinging strikes with that pitch.

But once the seventh inning rolled around, the Reds started hitting him harder.

Spencer Steer, once a Twins prospect who was traded for Tyler Mahle, led off the inning with a triple and came home to score on a Friedl bunt. One more run scored on a Ty France double.

“All three of those at-bats, I put the ball where I wanted to,” Ober said. “They executed. Only thing in the seventh inning that I want back is the walk. I threw the ball where I needed to and they just put good swings on it.”

That walk came after those hits and before two strikeouts. Ober then departed in favor of reliever Jorge Alcala, who walked the first batter he faced to bring up De La Cruz with the bases loaded.

The 22-year-old launched the first the first pitch he saw from Alcala out of the ballpark, sinking the Twins (78-69) into a deep hole.

“We need Alcala to go into that game and pitch, and pitch well and keep us in that game and, today, we didn’t get that, but that’s what we need from guys,” Baldelli said.

Though the Twins made some noise in the bottom of the seventh, scoring three runs of their own, it was too little, too late after they spent much of the night quieted by rookie starter Julian Aguiar, who gave up just three hits in his 6 1/3 innings pitched.

One of those hits came off the bat of Byron Buxton, who hit a home run in his first game in more than a month, tying the game up at the time.

Buxton scored two of the Twins’ four runs in the loss and while he gave his team a jolt in his return from the injured list, it wasn’t enough to save the Twins from defeat. With the loss, the Twins’ lead in the Wild Card race has narrowed to just 2 1/2 games over their nearest competitor, the Detroit Tigers.

“It’s now or never, really” Ober said. “The only way we’re getting into the playoffs is if we go out there and handle our business the way we should.”

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