On Monday night at Fenway Park, with the Orioles trailing by a run and the Red Sox riding what had become one of the longest winning streaks in franchise history, Christian Encarnacion-Strand stepped in against Payton Tolle and hit a ball over the deep left-centerfield wall. He had been recalled from Triple-A Norfolk four days earlier. It was his first home run with Baltimore. He's since hit another.
On Tuesday, in the visiting clubhouse at Fenway Park, he talked about the journey it took to get here. He said he feels "like I just started playing like myself again." It hasn't been a straight line to get there.
The Background
Encarnacion-Strand is 26, from Walnut Creek, California. (He has no relation to former MLB player Edwin Encarnacion, which was one of our first thoughts.) Encarnacion-Strand played college ball at Oklahoma State after transferring from San Jose State, where his sophomore season was cut short by the pandemic. At Oklahoma State in 2021, he hit .361 with 15 home runs and 66 RBIs and was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Year. The Minnesota Twins drafted him in the fourth round that June, 128th overall.
The Twins had him for about a year before trading him — along with Spencer Steer and Steve Hajjar — to Cincinnati in August 2022 for pitcher Tyler Mahle. Encarnacion-Strand would have barely noticed the uniform change. He spent the rest of 2022 in the minors, batting .304/.368/.587 with 114 RBIs across multiple levels, tied for second-most in the minor leagues that year.
By 2023 he was at Triple-A Louisville for the Reds, and the numbers were unmistakable: .331/.405/.637 with 20 home runs in 67 games. Cincinnati called him up in July. In 63 games as a rookie, he hit .270 with 13 home runs and a .805 OPS — the kind of debut that puts a player on a path.
Then it got harder.
The Cincinnati Years — and the Injuries
He played 128 games for Cincinnati from 2023 to 2025, hitting .233 with 21 home runs and a .679 OPS. Those numbers don't tell the whole story, though. They obscure what kept happening to him.
In 2024, a pitch off the wrist on April 27 started a chain of events that would end his season. He tried to play through it for four games before Cincinnati placed him on the injured list May 8 with a fractured bone. The Reds announced wrist surgery in late June — a three-month recovery timeline that ended his 2024 season entirely. He never played another game for them that year.
He came back in 2025 and dealt with lower back inflammation that cost him time in June. Going into 2026 spring training, he arrived with a hamstring injury that didn't help his chances of making the Opening Day roster. Three straight years with significant health interruptions. In Boston he talked about what it means to finally feel healthy — that when he's right physically, he can make the adjustments he needs to make. That's the context for everything that came after 2023.
The league had made adjustments to him. Pitchers found the holes in his swing — the chase rate, the pitches out of the zone that he couldn't resist. He knew he needed to make counter-adjustments. But making adjustments requires at-bats, and at-bats require being healthy. When you're hurt and fighting for playing time, you can't afford to be patient. You press. The numbers got worse.
“When you get injured and you’re not playing every day, it just gets hard," Encarnacion-Strand said on Tuesday. "Yeah, the league does learn you and you got to make adjustments, but it’s kind of hard to make adjustments when you can’t be on the field because you’re injured.”
When Terry Francona demoted him to Louisville in the summer of 2025, he told reporters "there was just way too much chase." He was right. But what Francona's quote didn't capture was how much of that chase rate was a symptom of a player who hadn't had a sustained healthy stretch to find his footing since his rookie year.
While it went mostly unnoticed, Encarnacion-Strand was pleased with the extensive playing time he got with the Reds' Triple-A affiliate at the end of last season.
He signed a new one-year deal with Cincinnati in March 2026, but arrived at spring training with a hamstring issue, and was designated for assignment on April 8.
Baltimore
The Orioles acquired him on April 13 in exchange for cash considerations and sent him to Triple-A Norfolk. It was a fresh-start situation — a player with obvious tools who needed consistent at-bats and a new environment. The Tides gave him both.
"Different uniform, change of scenery," Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said. "When you get traded for, it means the other organiziation wants you, which is always a great feeling to have."
At Norfolk this season he hit .273/.309/.555 with 17 home runs, 48 RBIs, and 35 runs scored across 257 plate appearances. He was playing more third base than he ever had with Cincinnati, where he'd been primarily a first baseman. The defensive position change mattered — at third he could share a roster with Pete Alonso and Samuel Basallo without a roster puzzle. He was making himself more useful.
When Blaze Alexander fractured his left hand in late July, the Orioles recalled Encarnacion-Strand on July 16. Camden Yards isn't a natural fit for right-handed power — left field was extended a few years back, and the park plays better for left-handed hitters — but he's the kind of hitter whose power plays anywhere if the contact comes.
Four days after the recall, he homered at Fenway. On Wednesday, in the first game of a split doubleheader with the Red Sox, hit a solo shot again, to the batter's eye. He went 3-for-4 with 2 RBI and was batting .429 as an Oriole heading into the nightcap.
What to Watch
The strikeout rate is still the question. Encarnacion-Strand's walk-to-strikeout ratio at Norfolk was 12 walks to 77 strikeouts across 257 plate appearances — the power is real, the patience still isn't quite there. Against major-league pitching, that chase tendency is going to get tested every night.
But he has an answer to that now, or at least an explanation that makes sense. The league adjusted to him. He couldn't fully adjust back because he kept getting hurt, kept losing at-bats, kept pressing. At Norfolk this year — his first extended healthy stretch since 2023 — he hit 19 home runs in 61 games. The adjustment is happening. He's the type of hitter who can get hot and make noise in a hurry.
"This year I’ve been able to get all the at bats and get the reps, so we’re just rolling along," Encarnacion-Strand said.
With Coby Mayo handling most of the third-base time against left-handed pitching, Encarnacion-Strand figures to see the righties — which historically is where he's done his best work.
He got here the long way. Oklahoma State to Minnesota to Cincinnati — through a fractured wrist, a bad back, a hamstring, and three years of inconsistency — to Norfolk to Baltimore. The power was always there. Now, finally, so is the player.
Christian Encarnacion-Strand and the Orioles return to Camden Yards this weekend for a three-game series against the Atlanta Braves.