How long? That remains to be seen.
The Cincinnati Reds have an enviable cache of starting pitching options at the moment, something that almost every single team in baseball cannot confidently imply.
Collectively, their starters have been valued at 5.5 fWAR so far in 2025, a mark that ties them with the Texas Rangers for 3rd best in all of baseball – and that’s with Chase Petty’s pair of disasters baked in. Hunter Greene, who’ll return to the bump tonight, has looked like one of the three best pitchers on the planet for much of the last year and a half, and the club even has a plethora of talented depth options in the minors on the cusp of staking their claim to spots in the rotation, too.
One arm, though, might be conspicuously absent from that plethora for a bit longer.
Rhett Lowder, the club’s 2023 1st round pick and top overall prospect (by some ranks), has been out of the big league picture all season after having forearm/elbow issues when in spring camp in Goodyear. The Reds opted to take it slow with him, though he’d recently been sent out on rehab with hopes that he’d be ramped up and ready to go by the end of May.
Then, this happened last night.
Lowder was pulled from this start with AAA Louisville after clearly being in discomfort after firing a pitch in the Top of the 2nd inning, and towards the end of the video you’ll see him begin to gesture/motion/point/rub his left side as if that’s what’s bothering him. That’s the good news here, I guess. It wasn’t a shoulder, wrist, or elbow that was barking enough to make him stop, even though an oblique issue of any sort would still set him back for quite some period.
Maybe it’s just one start and he’ll be fine. I’m old enough to remember when an oblique strain set Anthony DeSclafani back three months in 2018 though, too.
For now, the Reds will have to let Lowder take more time to build himself back up to full strength and lean on the depth they have with Petty, Wade Miley on his own comeback, and the upcoming fireballer Chase Burns.