The Cincinnati Reds and Andrew Abbott are both hoping that Wednesday is a successful first step towards the left-handed starter getting back on track and being ready to begin the 2025 season on time. Abbott is getting a late start to spring training games after his shoulder injury that cost him the final six weeks of 2024 carried over a little bit into 2025.
With the late start, it’s still undetermined if Andrew Abbott will be able to get ready in time for the regular season to begin on the 26-man roster. It has not been announced how much he’s expected to throw on Wednesday against the Texas Rangers, but the last time he was on the mound he threw a simulated game against his teammates that lasted for 2.0 innings.
This spring all of the starting pitchers began their spring with the goal of 2.0 innings in their first start. After that they’ve built up from there. Hunter Greene, for example, has thrown 4.0 innings in each of his last two starts after throwing 2.0 innings in his first two.
So let’s just start with the idea that Andrew Abbott will be asked to repeat what he did in his simulated game and throw 2.0 innings on Wednesday. If he adds one inning to each start after that every 6th day, he would be built up to throw 5.0 or 6.0 innings by the time he needed to pitch in the regular season.
The Reds would not need to use a 5th starter until April 2nd as long as there are no postponements along the way. If Abbott pitches every 6th day (whether that’s in a spring game or not) starting on Wednesday and then adds one inning/15 pitches to each outing, here’s how that would look:
| Date | Innings | Pitches |
| 12-Mar | 2.0 | 30 |
| 17-Mar | 3.0 | 45 |
| 22-Mar | 4.0 | 60 |
| 27-Mar | 5.0 | 75 |
| 2-Apr | 6.0 | 90 |
The regular season actually begins on March 27th, so if the Reds want to go along with this plan, Andrew Abbott would need to find a way to throw a bullpen session/simulated game that day if he’s going to remain on schedule to start on April 2nd when the team needs a 5th starter in the rotation. One option, of course, would just be to have him throw in the bullpen before the 4:10pm game on Opening Day to get his work in. But the Triple-A Louisville Bats also begin their season the next day and they are at home. If Cincinnati wants to get him in there against live batters, perhaps he could pitch to some of the Bats hitters (whether that’s at Great American Ballpark or Louisville Slugger Field – it’s a 90 minute drive between the two) that day.
This plan and progression doesn’t have much room for error, though. Abbott would not be able to have any setbacks in terms of missing a start or not being able to add on along the way. But if he can just add one inning/15 pitches each time out every 6th day moving forward it does seem like he could step into the rotation and be capable of providing the team with enough pitches to start the season on time.
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