Photo: Redleg Nation Staff
After dominating the bottom of the list, Elly De La Cruz finally saw some teammates join him on the list in the previous two weeks. But now the Cincinnati Reds shortstop is back on the list this week. If we learned anything from Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux a few decades ago it is that everyone loves the long ball. Perhaps 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 the middle of June Elly De La Cruz connected for his 13th home run of the season. His home run in Cleveland went a long, long way as the Reds took on the Guardians.
The VideoThe Metrics Behind The BlastDistance Metrics
Distance: 441 Feet
Reds Ranks: 4th
Major League Baseball Rank: 188th (tied)
Elly De La Cruz Rank: 2
Other Metrics
Launch Angle: 32°
Exit Velocity: 108.6 MPH
Bat Speed: 78.4 MPH
Reds Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 19th (out of 167)
Reds Bat Speed Rank (home runs only): 20th (of 157)
MLB Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 972nd (out of 5544)
MLB Bat Speed Rank (home runs only): 1026th (out of 5288)
The Story Behind The Blast
Cincinnati had just given up four runs in the bottom of the 3rd inning and were down 5-0. They would get one of those runs back in the top of the 4th inning. Elly De La Cruz came up to the plate with one out and the bases empty. In a 1-1 count the Reds shortstop saw Logan Allen try to get a cutter by him, but Allen’s pitch was called for at the top of the zone on the inside corner…. but it wound up middle-in and De La Cruz turned on it and almost put it into Lake Erie. Ok, he needed another mile-ish to get to the lake, but you get the point.
Elly De La Cruz also picked up a single in the game, finishing 2-4 on the day. The rest of the team only had three hits and Cleveland just kept on crushing the ball in what turned out to be an 11-2 loss for the Reds.
The home run for De La Cruz was his longest of the season as a right-handed hitter. It also came in a hot streak. From June 7th through June 15th he would go 13-33 with four home runs, hitting .394/.459/.848.
You can follow along the entire series here.
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