Photo: Doug Gray
This series is now in the top half and we are starting to see more players show up on the list after Elly De La Cruz had four of the previous five spots on the list. If we learned anything from Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux in the late 90’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.
In early July Christian Encarnacion-Strand came through with a long home run in Boston as the Reds defeated the Red Sox in Fenway Park.
The Video
The Metrics Behind The Blast
Distance Metrics
Distance: 439 Feet
Reds Ranks: 5th
Major League Baseball Rank: 226th (tied)
Christian Encarnacion-Strand Rank: 2
Other Metrics
Launch Angle: 30°
Exit Velocity: 109.1 MPH
Bat Speed: 79.1 MPH
Reds Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 16th (out of 167)
Reds Bat Speed Rank (home runs only): 15th (of 157)
MLB Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 787th (out of 5544)
MLB Bat Speed Rank (home runs only): 785th (out of 5288)
The Story Behind The Blast
Cincinnati was down 3-0 and hadn’t found much success on the day, but they loaded the bases with no outs against Greg Weissert. Just prior to the start of the at-bat there was a meeting at the mound to discuss some strategy for the Red Sox.
Weissert started the at-bat with four straight fastballs. After taking the first one, Encarnacion-Strand swung through the next two before fouling one off. He saw a sweeper next and laid off. Weissert and the Red Sox opted to go back to the fastball on the 6th pitch and that turned out to be a mistake as the Reds first baseman hit the ball completely out of the ballpark to left-center for a grand slam that put the visiting team in the lead.
For some reason the Red Sox stuck with Weissert for four more batters that inning, with the Reds picking up two more hits and another run before he was pulled with two outs. Cincinnati had grabbed a 5-3 lead and never trailed again in the game as they went on to win 8-4.
That was the last home run of the year in the big leagues for Christian Encarnacion-Strand. He played two more games with the Reds – one in Philadelphia four days later and then one in Miami on July 8th. After that he was optioned back to Triple-A and he remained there for the rest of the season.
You can follow along the entire series here.
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