The Cincinnati Reds announced that Hunter Greene would start game one against the Dodgers in Los Angeles earlier on Monday afternoon. That surprised no one as it was the entire basis of the moves not made in the final week of the season that led up to Greene being set up to open the playoffs. But where the team went in the rotation after his start in game one was not known. Manager Terry Francona told the media late on Monday night that they would be going with Zack Littell in game two and if necessary that Andrew Abbott would be on the mound for game three. Nick Lodolo, who pitched out of the bullpen on Sunday, will remain in the bullpen for the series. This was first reported by Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
We talked about Hunter Greene earlier on Monday when it was announced that he would be the starter for the first game. Now let’s take a look at how Zack Littell and Andrew Abbott have done against the Dodgers of late.
For Zack Littell it’s actually very simple – he has not pitched against the Dodgers since the 2022 season when he was still with the San Francisco Giants. Looking at those games isn’t very useful for a lot of reasons – the time that’s passed, the fact that he was still pitching out of the bullpen at the time, etc.
It’s even simpler for Andrew Abbott. Somehow he’s never faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in his career. 75 starts in his career and somehow avoided pitching against a team in the same league he’s in.
Andrew Abbott would have to pitch on short rest to pitch on Wednesday in game two, but pitching on one less day of rest if not at all unheard of in the playoffs, even these days when pitchers get handled with kid gloves far more often. Going with the guy in Littell who gave up 36 home runs (2nd most in baseball) and had an ERA of 4.39 with the Reds after being acquired at the trade deadline over Abbott and his 2.87 ERA on short rest could be one of those coin-flip situations, but against a strong offense it feels like you may want to roll the dice on the better pitcher.
Getting away from the starters, though, Nick Lodolo in the bullpen is interesting. He’s never really been a relief pitcher. And it’s almost a certainty that he’s not going to pitch in all three games if there are three games to be pitched in. Maybe you won’t even see him in back-to-back games given his background as a starter. But he certainly does give you a matchup nightmare against a lefty or two if you find yourself in the right situation to use him. And that’s something the bullpen doesn’t really have without him.
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