Photo: Redleg Nation Staff
The Cincinnati Reds currently sit in first place in the National League Central at 19-10. The offense, which struggled in a big way over the first half of the month, has turned things around and has been performing well over the last two weeks. There’s been a lot that has gone right for the team thus far, but one thing that hasn’t has been the injuries in the rotation. Both Nick Lodolo and Hunter Greene were injured this spring and neither has pitched in the regular season yet.
For Lodolo, his injury is less serious as he’s dealing with a blister issue on his index finger. Still, it’s been over a month since he had the problem pop up in his final start of spring training. On Sunday he made his first rehab start this time around – he had a rehab start in early April in Daytona but had to exit early when his blister issue came back – and he struck out seven batters over five innings with the Dayton Dragons. Lodolo threw 51 pitches with 39 strikes that afternoon.
With that behind him the lefty will now be heading to Triple-A to join Louisville where he’s going to make a start for the Bats. On May 2nd he’ll take the mound in Omaha against the Storm Chasers and he’ll be looking to up his pitch count as he pushes to get back to the big leagues.
Hunter Greene is dealing with a more serious injury. In March he underwent surgery to clean up bone spurs in his pitching elbow. When he had the surgery it was said that he would miss 14-16 weeks, taking him to around a point in late July to mid-July before he would be back with the club if things went right on that timeline. It’s been a few weeks since he began tossing and he’s now up to throwing from 110 feet according to manager Terry Francona. He added that it would still be several weeks before Greene would throw his first bullpen session.