We are almost to the top spot on the list, but you’ll have to check back in a week to read more about the top spot. Today we’re at the runner up spot on the list. If we learned anything from Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux in the late 1990’s it is that everyone loves the long ball. Alright, maybe that was not the exact takeaway from the two Cy Young Award winners, but long home runs have been something people have talked about for over a hundred years. Only in the last decade or so, though, have we truly been able to measure their distance with *some* accuracy. Thanks to ball tracking in the big leagues we can compare 1-to-1 how far a baseball went. Every week for the next few months we’re going to be counting down the 10 longest home runs hit by the Cincinnati Reds in the 2025 season.
To see the runner up for the Reds longest home run of the season you have to go back to the second week of the season. On April 5th Christian Encarnacion-Strand hit a long home run in Milwaukee as Cincinnati topped the Brewers.
The Video
The Metrics Behind The Blast
Distance Metrics
Distance: 451 Feet
Reds Ranks: 2nd
Major League Baseball Rank: 65th (tied)
Christian Encarnacion-Strand Rank: 1
Other Metrics
Launch Angle: 29°
Exit Velocity: 111.4 MPH
Bat Speed: 76.2 MPH
Reds Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 6th (out of 167)
Reds Bat Speed Rank (home runs only): 37th (of 157)
MLB Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 267th (out of 5544)
MLB Bat Speed Rank (home runs only): 2037th (out of 5288)
The Story Behind The Blast
This game wasn’t exactly close at this point with the Reds already up 4-0, but Christian Encarnacion-Strand pushed the lead to 5-0 to lead off the 4th inning. Elvin Rodriguez had fallen behind 2-1 in the count and his catcher called for a fastball up and away. Rodriguez did not locate the pitch up and away. Instead it was middle away and Encarnacion-Strand obliterated the ball to center field and off of the scoreboard.
The Reds could score two more runs in the inning to extend their lead to 7-0 and they would ultimately hang on for an 11-7 win. It pushed Cincinnati’s record to 3-6, while the Brewers fell to 4-5 on the season.
For Christian Encarnacion-Strand it broke him out of a slump. He had two hits in each of his first two games of the season in 2025 and he homered in that second game. But following that home run he went 0-18, including a fly out earlier in this game against the Brewers. The first baseman made that hit count, but he would continue to struggle moving forward, going 4-31 over the rest of his time with Cincinnati in April before he was placed on the injured list on the 17th with lower back inflammation. He wouldn’t return to the field for five weeks before beginning a rehab assignment in the minor leagues.
When Encarnacion-Strand returned to Cincinnati on June 6th he would catch fire, going 7-13 with a home run in each of his first three games back. But things went south quickly after that and five weeks later he was in Triple-A and didn’t return to the big leagues for the rest of the year.
You can follow along the entire series here.
