The Cincinnati Reds are sending left-handed starting pitcher Nick Lodolo out on a rehab start on Thursday evening. Currently on the 15-day injured list due to a blister on his index finger on his left hand, Lodolo is in Daytona and tonight he’ll be on the mound in the season opener for the Single-A Tortugas. The game is scheduled to begin at 6;35pm ET. If you are a Reds.tv or MLB.tv subscriber the game should be available for you to watch through MiLB.tv or on the MLB app as the minor league games are included with those packages.
As for the blister, Lodolo spoke with new Daytona broadcaster Matthew Mounsey on Wednesday at Jackie Robinson Ballpark as the team went through workouts.
“It’s good now (the blister),” Lodolo said. “I haven’t been in any game action since spring training. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. ”
Lodolo is eligible to return from the injured list on April 7th. If he comes through his rehab start tonight just fine it’s possible that he could indeed return that day if the Reds want it to work out that way as he would be pitching on a 5-day schedule. Cincinnati is in Miami from the 6th through the 9th, so if the plan remains to get him back to the big leagues after just one start – something that manager Terry Francona indicated – then it seems very likely he’ll jump into the rotation against the Marlins at some point depending on exactly where they want to mix him into things.
Rece Hinds is on fire in Triple-A
There’s an argument to be made that Rece Hinds did all he could in spring training to earn a job in the big leagues, but it seemed that the only jobs open were for bench players and the Reds wanted him to play every day so he was sent to Triple-A.
Hinds has not skipped a beat since the season began in Louisville last week. In the first game of the year he went 2-4 with an RBI. The next day he went 2-5 with a walk, two runs batted in, and a walk-off hit in the 10th inning. On Sunday he went 2-2 with two walks, a run, and an RBI as the Bats swept the 3-game series against Omaha.
That series went quite well for Hinds. But it was just a tease for what has come so far in this week’s series against Iowa. In Tuesday’s opener he went 2-3 with a walk, triple, two runs, three RBI, and he hit a walk-off home run. When Louisville returned to the field 14 hours later for an afternoon tilt Hinds went out and went 2-4 with a walk, two home runs, and five runs batted in.
Five games played, three home runs, 10 hits, 12 runs batted in, five walks, and five strikeouts. All of that has led to a .526 batting average, a .600 on-base percentage, and a slugging percentage of 1.105.