Photo: Redleg Nation Staff
The Cincinnati Reds are playing their final game in Arizona for spring training this afternoon. Left-handed starting pitcher Nick Lodolo was on the mound for his final spring start before the regular season began, but in the bottom of the 1st inning after he allowed a walk and a 2-run home run he two pitches to Jose Ramirez and on that second pitch he took a look at his hand after and then got a visit to the mound. The conversation between manager Terry Francona and Lodolo didn’t last very long before the pitcher walked off of the mound and to the dugout.
Lodolo, who has had a history with blisters on his pitching hand, had the issue pop up again as confirmed by Tommy Thrall on the radio broadcast about 10 minutes after Lodolo exited the game. Earlier in the week Brady Singer also left the game early with a blister. That one was caught in time and Singer told the media that he was fine and was going to be making his scheduled start in Milwaukee. Hopefully the issue for Lodolo was also caught early enough that he can still be ready to go for the second game of the regular season.
If Lodolo is not going to be ready to start the season on time the Reds will be able to slide Brandon Williamson into the rotation rather than have him work in a relief role behind one of Chase Burns or Rhett Lowder. He could fill in until Lodolo were ready to get back on the mound. That would also open up a spot in the bullpen for the time being and would get someone who was among the final cuts this spring to the big leagues.
Update (4:30pm ET)
General manager Brad Meador joined the Reds radio booth and was asked “Is this a situation like Brady (Singer) where it was caught early enough and maybe it was caught before it becomes a problem that could affect him during the season?
“Certainly hope so,” said Meador. “We don’t know yet. We’ll see how he is tomorrow. He’s had them enough that you hope that he felt it soon enough to get out of there before it got bad. I’m sure he did. But they’re all different. So we’ll see how he recovers tomorrow and go from there.”
For now we’re all just in a wait-and-see situation. We will update this with more information when it becomes available.
About The Author
