ST. LOUIS – For a team in the position the Reds are in right now, late September offers an important learning opportunity for baseball. Having already been knocked out of postseason play, they’re now rating a variety of players in a variety of ways — some by performance, some by health, and some to see if the seasons of the minor league journey could find an unexpected ending .
The Reds got swept up in Saturday’s doubleheader at Busch Stadium, losing the first game 5-1 and the second 1-0 in 11 innings.
Capping the day’s 20 innings of baseball was Nick Senzel, who went from center field to become the club’s fifth infielder, speared a ground ball and threw home a powerful pitch that fended off Cardinals catcher Andrew Knizner and rolled helplessly down the turf .
However, Hunter Greene’s performance at the nightcap did much to ease the frustration at the end of the night. Placed on the injured list with a right shoulder strain after a superlative start in Miami on Aug. 1 (six innings, one hit, eight strikeouts) with a right shoulder strain, Greene returned to the big leagues with a performance that seemed so far above the top sharpened with a whetstone.
“It’s one of the best starts I’ve seen,” said Reds manager David Bell. “He just absolutely dominated and we’re talking about a first-place team with outstanding hitters up and down the lineup. Left, right, it didn’t matter.”
Eight of Greene’s first nine recorded outs were strikeouts, and the first seven of those eight were on fields traveling at 101 mph or more, according to Statcast. Greene was the first pitcher with more than three strikeouts of that rate in a single game in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008).
He finished with a bold eight of that sort for a total of 11, setting a new career high. He threw 47 pitches at 100 mph or harder, beating his own previous record – set on April 16 – by eight.
“I put it all in my own head, in my own head about how the first game back is going to be,” Greene explained. “A lot of work, a lot of focus, and coming out and then performing well is always nice.”
While he steadfastly avoided glancing at the radar gun mid-performance, Greene acknowledged that the sense of strength coupled with results fueled his positivity.
“I worked really hard during this time off and in rehab,” he said. “In a way I’m trying to improve for this last part of the season and going into the off-season and next year. There was a lot of focus on that.”
Following an early injury to right-back Justin Dunn, the sudden pressure of a bullpen start just before a double header put Bell in an unenviable position as Game 1 starter Mike Minor faltered.
Minor, who volunteered: “Everything [felt] bad” during his start, battled white-knuckled through three innings for 89 pitches and allowed five earned runs on five hits and five walks. What could have turned into an innings crisis instead turned into a different kind of opportunity for journeyman hand Kyle Dowdy.
The 29-year-old right-hander, who was playing in just his second game for the Reds and in his first major league season since 2019, was Cincinnati’s 29th player added for the doubleheader. When called on to throw as many innings as his arm could handle, he threw four scoreless frames, threw three singles and a walk.
“You just have to have the attitude of going out there to attack hitters and put as many as possible in the hitting zone,” Dowdy said. “Try to compete and get out fast, add some length. Luckily, God willing, it happened today.”
Bell said Dowdy attempted to meddle in a fifth inning but did so before being sent to the mound for bottom of the seventh. An attempt, Dowdy admitted with a grin, to convince his manager by catching him off guard.
Whether a six-year-old pitcher with the Minors who turns 30 before pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training 2023 really lies in the club’s future is less clear than the importance of the organization’s most highly-vaunted weapons.
On Saturday, however, like Greene after him, Dowdy had an opportunity. Breaking down the door is often the first step in breaking through it.
“Our entire team…did great performances,” Bell said as he reflected on the twin bill. “It’s an empty feeling, it’s a terrible feeling. Some games sure hurt more than others. But it doesn’t change how I feel about our players, how they feel about each other.
“You have to understand that this is how the game is played. Keep up the good work and there will be many victories to come.”