Reds outfielder Nick Castellanos’ impressive performance at the plate in Cincinnati’s 12-2 win against the Cardinals on Wednesday drew some suspicion from St. Louis manager Mike Shildt.

After Castellanos hit his second home run of the game in the second inning, Shildt requested that the umpires inspect the slugger’s bat. The 29-year-old complied, and after a review with an umpiring crew in New York, officials concluded the lumber did not influence his home runs.

Castellanos had a chip in his bat — the same one he’d used during the Reds-Cardinals series this week, along with a number of other times this season — but said one of the umpires was aware.

“The home plate umpire [John Tumpane] from the first game (of the doubleheader) — actually in my last at-bat — told me, he’s like, ‘Hey Nick, you see your bat at the top?’ I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s fine.’ He goes, ‘OK,’ so the umpire in the first game was aware that my bat was in that condition,” Castellanos said.

The second homer — a grand slam — marked his 26th long ball of the season, one shy of his career high.

Schildt and crew chief Phil Cuzzi later explained the bat check was about a safety issue, rather than disputing the play.

“The bat was chipped. It’s just by rule,” Shildt said. “Look, I don’t want to make it a big deal. The guy hit a homer with a chipped bat so good for him — he put two really good swings on it.

“I wasn’t going to say anything initially, but the bat boy ran out there so quickly I didn’t want the bat to get gone. I knew there wasn’t really any recourse. I thought the crew handled it well. I just wanted to make sure we captured the bat because he (the bat boy) went out there so quickly. That was it. Nothing bigger than that.”

Cuzzi ruled that the chipped bat “didn’t give Castellanos an advantage” at the plate.

“It’s really just more of a dangerous thing because it’s easier for that bat, if he gets a ball off the end of the bat, it could shatter and who knows? It goes in somebody’s eyes, in somebody’s face,” he said, noting, “It was more of a safety thing, but it had nothing to do with the home run.”

After the game, Castellanos seemed to question why there was a specific “issue” with his second dinger, and pointed out a series of other events that took place throughout the week.

“My view is that was my second homer and I drove in six. All of a sudden, there was an issue,” he said. “There was no issue when [Jon] Lester absolutely carved me up [Monday]. And there was no issue in the first game [Wednesday]. But then there was an issue.”

Castellanos, who finished the game 2-for-3 with six RBIs, a walk and three runs scored, shrugged off the situation, and said he gave the chipped bat to a fan.

“It is what it is. My feelings of it are kind of irrelevant. It’s what [Shildt] chose to do. I decided to give the dangerous piece of lumber to some lucky kid that was sitting above the dugout so, at the end of the day, everybody wins.”

The Reds dominated the Cardinals in the second half of Wednesday’s doubleheader, after St. Louis beat Cincinnati 5-4 earlier in the day. After securing the final win in the three-game series, the Reds are 1/2 game ahead of the Padres for the second NL Wild Card spot.

Castellanos is hitting .392 with five homers and 12 RBIs this season against St. Louis. He also recalled hitting a home run against the Cardinals on Opening Day with the same bat.

“I’ve been doing it all year because I don’t want to just waste a bat. I will just pick the pieces of wood that are pushed back until the entire bat is intact. Then I just go and use it. Actually my Opening Day homer against them had a chunk missing because the same thing happened in Spring Training.”

On April 3, Castellanos was at the center of a Reds-Cardinals bench-clearing scuffle when he flexed over St Louis pitcher Jake Woodford after scoring on a wild pitch. Castellanos was handed a two-game suspension for the incident.