The Cincinnati Reds have been rather careful with Hunter Greene since he was drafted. In 2017 the Reds signed him in early July after he was drafted. However, he didn’t pitch in a game until late August. And when he did, he was on very strict pitch counts in those three starts.
This season the Reds began Greene, now an 18-year-old, on a strict pitch count. As the season has gone along that pitch count has risen. On Friday night he threw a season high 87 pitches and it led to his longest outing of his career.
Prior to Friday night, Hunter Greene had not pitched beyond the 5th inning in his career. Taking on the South Bend Cubs for the third time on the season, and for the second start in a row, the right-handed pitcher blew past the 5th inning and then some. Greene pitched not only into the 6th inning, but he recorded two outs in the 7th inning before being replaced by reliever Cory Thompson.
Hunter Greene was charged with two earned runs in the game, and a third unearned run came across the plate in his 6.2 innings of work. He didn’t walk anyone during the outing, though he did hit one batter. Greene struck out seven batters on the evening, the third highest total of the season for him (he has had eight on two occasions).
Friday night was just a continuation of a strong run of starts put together by one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. Hunter Greene over the last five weeks has thrown 37.2 innings for the Dayton Dragons and posted a 2.87 ERA. That’s also come with just seven walks, three home runs, and he’s struck out 42 batters in that span.
On the season he’s walked just 17 batters and he’s now got 60 strikeouts in 47.1 innings. His ERA is sitting at 5.13 on the year, still recovering from a 3-start hiccup in late April/early May. Removing those three starts from the season would leave Hunter Greene with this line over 10 starts:
- Innings: 43.0
- Hits: 42
- Walks: 8
- Strikeouts: 53
- Home Runs: 3
- ERA: 2.93
He’s clearly been in a groove for a while now, but that small stretch where he struggled, is still really dragging down his overall season numbers – particularly in the ERA department. Greene’s done pretty much everything you could ask for, much less from an 18-year-old at the level he’s pitching at, for a large part of 2018 season.