This week we are moving ahead in this series and get to the 7th longest home run hit by a Cincinnati Reds player in the 2024 season. If Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux have taught us anything it’s that everyone loves the long ball. Ok, perhaps that wasn’t exactly the takeaway from those two guys, 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 Monday for the next few months we’re going to be counting down the 10 longest home runs hit by the Cincinnati Reds in the 2024 season.
Elly De La Cruz is making his second straight appearance on the list this week. This week’s home run came five weeks after the one highlighted a week ago and is the second, but not last time one of the 10 longest home runs hit by a Reds player this year came against the Colorado Rockies.
The Video
The Metrics Behind The Blast
Ty Blach was pitching well at the time, but it was still the 3rd inning when Elly De La Cruz came to the plate for the second time in the game. The two battled to a full count before the left-handed pitcher went with a fastball that couldn’t crack 90 MPH. It didn’t work out this time for Blach as De La Cruz demolished the ball and sent it into the trees beyond the wall in center at 448 feet from home plate.
Distance Metrics
Distance: 448 Feet
Reds Ranks: 7th
Major League Baseball Rank: 99th
Elly De La Cruz Rank: 4
Other Metrics
Launch Angle: 24°
Exit Velocity: 109.2 MPH
Reds Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 20th (out of 174)
MLB Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 644th (out of 5445)
The Story Behind The Blast
In the first at-bat of the day for Elly De La Cruz he took the first pitch that he saw from Ty Blach, an 87.5 MPH fastball, and bunted it. While any bunt from De La Cruz isn’t a true sacrifice given his speed, he’s also the kind of guy you wonder about ever bunting because of the damage he can do. Nevertheless, his bunt failed to get him to first base, but did move Stuart Fairchild up a bag.
The second time he came up to the plate he wasn’t bunting. No one was on base. He got ahead 2-0 in the count after taking a change up and cutter outside of the zone. Blach then threw him three fastballs in a row – two of which were fouled off and the third being ball three. The Rockies lefty made the mistake of throwing a fourth straight fastball, which wasn’t all that fast on the way in, but it had plenty of velocity on it’s way out.
The home run was the first for De La Cruz in nearly a month. He hadn’t homered prior to that since May 11th and it was only his second home run since April 29th. It gave the Reds a 2-0 lead and they held on for a 4-1 win behind an outstanding start by Frankie Montas where he allowed one hit and struck out nine in 7.0 shutout innings. The victory was the Reds third in a row and they would keep that winning streak going for another four days and run their streak to seven games before losing the series finale on the 9th to the Cubs. That loss prevented the team from reaching the .500 mark.
You can follow along the entire series here
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