The Cincinnati Reds made their first trip away from Goodyear Ballpark on Wednesday afternoon. They headed north to take on the Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch and they took care of business thanks to several home runs and quality pitching on the day, picking up a 3-2 victory.
The Highlights
Cincinnati got on the board first in this one. The first pitch of the 2nd inning to Sal Stewart was a 95 MPH fastball and it went out at 108 MPH and didn’t land for another 440 feet as Stewart crushed his first home run of the spring to make it 1-0.
Nick Lodolo, after striking out the side in the bottom of the 1st returned for the 2nd inning and picked up another strikeout, working around two singles to complete his day with two shutout innings.
Hector Rodriguez would line a single into left field in the top of the 3rd inning. He would come around to score when JJ Bleday clobbered a 464-foot home run six pitches later as the Reds extended their lead to 3-0. That’s where the lead remained until the bottom of the 4th when Colson Montgomery connected for a long home run off of Lyon Richardson to get the White Sox on the board and make it 3-1.
After four innings of shutout relief from the Reds bullpen, Chicago broke through in the 9th against Julian Garcia when the White Sox picked up a leadoff single then then got an RBI double from Dustin Harris to make it a 1-run game. But that was all they would get as Cincinnati held on for a 3-2 win to pull themselves to the .500 mark on the spring at 2-2.
You can see the box score for this game here.
News and Notes
The two teams combined to walk twice and strike out 19 times. The Reds pitchers had 12 of those 19 strikeouts. Nick Lodolo (4), Luis Mey (3), Julian Garcia (3), and Darren McCaughan (2) all had multiple strikeouts in their outings.
Lodolo was throwing a lot of strikes, but he also threw a lot of pitches. He threw 2.0 innings and 40 pitches, resulting in 30 strikes on the day. He had the four strikeouts as mentioned above, and his other two outs were recorded on ground balls.
No hitter for Cincinnati had more than one hit, but Nathaniel Lowe did have a hit and a walk.
JJ Bleday is hitting .500, going 3-6 in his two games so far. He’s had five batted balls this spring. Their exit velocities are as follows: 92.5 MPH, 100.1 MPH, 109.0 MPH, 109.2 MPH, and 110.2 MPH.
The Reds bench players once again struggle to hit, going 2-10 on the day. With the exception of going 4-5 in the 9th inning of yesterday’s game, the bench is now 5-41 this spring.
Tomorrow the Cincinnati Reds are back at home as they host the San Diego Padres. Scheduled to pitch for Cincinnati in the game: Chase Burns, Chase Petty, Graham Ashcraft, Connor Phillips, Tejay Antone, and Zach Maxwell. The game is slated to begin at 3:05pm ET.
JJ Bleday is tearing the cover off of the ball in his first At-bats this spring adding points to make the major team…
Nathan Lowe has been solid too so far…
Leo Balcazar taking advantage of his opportunities…
No Hunter Greene yet??
Wondered the same thing about Hunter; Burns is starting tomorrow, and Hunter isn’t among the pitchers mentioned for the game. Not sure what the plan for HG is…
Don’t think Singer has pitched yet either. Probably the next game or two.
Meh has a chance to be a back of the bullpen guy if he can harness his control. Maybe not this year but down the road
Im surprised not to see Ferguson, Pagan, Moll, or Santillan, yet Garcia has thrown twice.
I think we are far enough into this spring training to make these evaluations of the Reds:
1. They are not likely to have a team with a combined OPS of 8.000 on most night during the season.
2. Michael Toglia is not our best option in center field.
3. JJ Bleday will probably not hit very many 464-foot homers.
4. Caleb Ferguson is an underrated asset for the bullpen.
5. I still worry about sunburn for these guys out there in the hot sun.
Looking for #4 to become clear pretty quickly – have the correct closer for game #1 and let the bullpen fall into order after that. By May 1st it will be clear of it’s strong or not. I’m thinking stronger than most years, but you never know with bullpens.
Lot of assumptions after three games. I’m happy not to hear about any injuries so far
Well, I made 1 assumption other than the one about the sunburn.
You’re right. Instead of assumptions I should have said opinions. Three game opinions
I bet you’re a lot of fun at library meetings.
Baseball is rarely a topic of discussion at local library meetings.
Which is why I never go to library meetings.
LOL Did you actually read the list? It was clearly tongue in cheek. It was a parody of a post drawing conclusions after 3 days. I think you missed the joke.
The sunburn factor in AZ in February is highly exaggerated.
whew, I can cross that off my worries list.
Thanks.
Nice to win a close game! How long is the Lyon Richardson experiment going to last?
They’re just Lyon to themselves.
Hopefully, through Spring Training.
Preferably longer, in AAA if necessary.
The impatience of RLN fans always impresses me.
“Release Phillips!”
“Chase Petty is a lost cause!”
“Abbott shouldn’t be in the rotation. He doesn’t have great stuff.”
“With Suarez and Lowe, Stewart can start in AAA.”
Funny stuff.
+10000
I’m a Browns fan so I’m used to reading dumb fan comments. Heck they still are trashing Baker Mayfield.
It’s spring training.
464 foot dinger might never do that again. That’s a poke. Seems the starters would have been great one inning opener. First few games of ST I have only had Doug’s recaps but it appears that there is a bit of urgency. I think Lowe will be seeing AB’s against righties. Seems like we are deeper than previous seasons. Hoping for a fun summer
Guys who can hit straight pitches are hitting well right now!
Bleday’s HR was slider down and in.
Bleday and Lowe will both break camp with the Reds. So that only leaves two other bench spots and Trevino is a lock for one of them. Surely Myers gets the other spot.
Louisville should have a solid roster given the number of guys in camp who are definitely solid players for AAA including CES, Hinds, HRod, Urbaez, and others
Barring injury, this seems the almost certain outcome. Potentially one of the natural OF’ers supplants Myers, but my bet is if that happens, it happens in May.
Blake Dunn would be the only real option ahead of Myers.
… Several? 2 is not several. Maybe for the 2025 Reds offense, but come on.
The key tells for me are who is starting spring training games and who is coming in as part of the second unit to face pitchers likely destined for the minor leagues.
Balcazar, Collier (non-roster), Toglia (non-roster), Callihan, Banfield, Chavis (non-roster), Trautwein (non-roster), and Higgins (non-roster) have had that every time. Arroyo, Hinds, Rodriguez, Stewart, Dunn, Hampson (non-roster) and Hensley (non-roster) have had that at least once.
I’m guessing that most, if not all, of these guys will start at AAA.
The guys consistently starting that could make the team are Bleday, Lowe, Benson, and Myers. That means there are likely 1-2 active man roster spots still open.
The WBC time should open the window of assessment and opportunity very soon too.