Reds Longest Home Runs of 2025: #2: Christian Encarnacion-Strand – Redleg Nation

We’re almost at the top spot on the list, but you’ll have to come back in a week to read more about the top spot. Today we are second on the list. If we learned anything from Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux in the late 1990s, it’s that everyone likes the long ball. Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly the conclusion of the two Cy Young Award winners, but long home runs are something people have been talking about for over a hundred years. But only in the last decade have we really been able to measure their distance with *any* accuracy. Thanks to ball tracking in the major leagues, we can compare 1-to-1 how far a baseball went. Each week for the next few months, we’ll be counting down the 10 longest home runs the Cincinnati Reds have hit in the 2025 season.

To see the Reds’ second-longest home run of the season, you have to go back to the second week of the season. On April 5, Christian Encarnacion-Strand hit a long home run in Milwaukee as Cincinnati topped the Brewers.

The video

The statistics behind the explosion

Distance statistics

Distance: 451 feet

Reds ranks: 2nd

Major League Baseball Rankings: 65th (tie)

Christian Encarnacion-Strand ranking: 1

Other statistics

Launch angle: 29°

Output speed: 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 explosion

This game wasn’t exactly exciting at this point as the Reds were already up 4-0, but Christian Encarnacion-Strand pushed the lead to 5-0 to start the 4th inning. Elvin Rodriguez had fallen behind 2-1 in the count and his catcher called for an up-and-down fastball. Rodriguez couldn’t locate up and down the field. Instead, the middle was gone and Encarnacion-Strand destroyed the ball into midfield and off the scoreboard.

The Reds were able to score two more runs in the inning to extend their lead to 7-0 and would ultimately hold 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 2025 season and homered in that second game. But after that home run, he went 0-18, including a flyout earlier in this game against the Brewers. The first baseman experienced that hit, but he would continue to struggle moving forward, going 4-31 during the remainder of his time with Cincinnati in April before being placed on the 17th injured list due to 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 6, he caught fire, going 7-13 with a home run in each of his first three games back. But things quickly went wrong after that and five weeks later he was in Triple-A and did not return to the big league for the rest of the year.

You can follow the entire series here.