ST. LOUIS -- Phillies first baseman Carlos Santana continued his power surge with a solo home run in the fifth inning as Philadelphia beat the Cardinals, 6-2, on Thursday.
Santana drilled a 93-mph fastball from Luke Weaver 437 feet over the center-field wall, according to Statcast™, for his eighth homer of the season and sixth in his last 11 games.
"He's managing his at-bats well, he's seeing pitches and he's squaring the baseball up," Phillies manager Gabe Kapler said. "The balls are just going out of the park more frequently, they're landing on the grass more frequently. We've said from the beginning of the season that he was working good at-bats and he was making solid contact and eventually that track record, the six years of success would show up, and we'd see the Carlos Santana that we signed."
Weaver didn't believe he missed on the pitch.
"Sometimes it's one swing, one pitch," Weaver said. "I thought it was a decently good one [to Santana]. He ambushed it and put a good swing on it. Obviously they added some later on, but at that point it was a pitchers' duel."
Santana entered the game tied with Cincinnati's Eugenio Suarez for most RBIs this month with 16.