We made it through the bottom half of the Top 10 longest homers of the 2021 season by Cincinnati Reds without mentioning Tyler Naquin, but that ends today and it won’t be the last time you’ll see his name, either. On April 6th he hit a ball that nearly made it to Kentucky off of Trevor Cahill.
The Video
The Metrics Behind The Blast
There’s an old saying in baseball that left-handed hitters love the ball down and in. Trevor Cahill learned that one the hard way on this particular day as he left an 84 MPH change up down and in to Tyler Naquin and he sent it hurling towards the Ohio River in a hurry.
Distance Metrics
Distance: 454 feet
Reds Rank: 5th
Major League Baseball Rank: 109th (tie)
Tyler Naquin Rank: 2nd (tie)
Other Metrics
Launch Angle: 32°
Exit Velocity: 113.5 MPH
Reds Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 2nd (tie) out of 222
MLB Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 111th (tie) out of 5935
The Story Behind The Blast
The Cincinnati Reds were on a roll. They entered the day riding a 3-game winning streak and Tyler Naquin was going to do all that he could to keep that going. And he did just that as he unloaded on a change up from Trevor Cahill to put the Reds ahead 1-0 in the bottom of the 1st inning. He would add another home run, a walk, and a single in the game while driving in seven runs as Cincinnati crushed the Pittsburgh Pirates 14-1 on the day en-route to a 3-game sweep of their divisional rivals. That was also the first of three consecutive games that Naquin would homer in and give him five homers in five games between the final game of the St. Louis series that began the year, the sweep of Pittsburgh, and the first game of their road trip out west that began in Arizona.
You can follow along the entire series here