Photo: Doug Gray
On Tuesday night Hunter Greene was in Louisville where he made a rehab start for the Triple-A Bats. Greene, who hasn’t pitched since late February and underwent surgery in March to have bone spurs removed from his right elbow, was making his first rehab start in Triple-A and his second rehab start overall. Things went well for him as he didn’t allow a run in his 4.0 innings while facing the St. Paul Saints. Greene allowed two hits, walked one batter, and he struck out three of the 15 hitters he faced before exiting the game.
The rehab start prior to this one saw Hunter Greene throw a very similar game out in Arizona. The right-handed pitcher also threw 4.0 shutout innings with a walk and allowed two hits for the rookie level Arizona Complex League Reds. He struck out six Cubs batters that night while throwing 54 pitches with 39 strikes. On Tuesday night he threw more pitches to get through his outing, firing off 64 pitches. He also threw fewer strikes despite throwing 10 more pitches, tossing just 36 strikes on the night.
Rehab outings are less about on-field results than about getting ones self ready for their big league return. With that said, Greene found himself in trouble twice. In the top of the 1st inning he gave up a 1-out triple but he came back with a strikeout and a pop up to Will Banfield in foul territory behind the plate to strand the runner. In the top of the 4th inning he gave up a 1-out single and then followed that with a walk. Greene then retired the next two batters on weak fly balls, needing just four pitches to do so, to finish out his night.
As of now there is at least one more rehab outing ahead for Hunter Greene. Teams tend to add 15-20 pitches to the workload for starting pitchers when they are out on rehab outings, which would put Greene around that 80-85 pitch mark the next time out. Assuming that outing goes well you could reasonably expect that the time after that you see him on the mound that it will be with the Reds as he would be “built up” to handle 90-100-ish pitches