Rhett Lowder took the mound in a professional baseball game on Tuesday night for the first time in nearly a month. What he produced didn’t matter nearly as much as how he felt after getting in the work with AAA Louisville, and apparently he’s feeling just fine.
According to MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon, Lowder came out of his 5.0 IP outing against the Memphis Redbirds feeling as he was supposed to feel as a starting pitcher, and will rejoin the Cincinnati Reds to make a start on Sunday when the team is in St.
Louis facing the Cardinals. So said manager Terry Francona, per Sheldon.
Lowder yielded a trio of runs in his rehab outing, but he threw 70 pitches, logged 8 strikeouts, and didn’t walk a soul in an outing more reminiscent of him at his finest.
What we’ll be anxious to see now, though, is just how much the ‘clicking’ in his shoulder that shut him down early in a May 7th start against the Chicago Cubs was something that caused him to stumble a bit against big league pitching prior to hitting the shelf. Between that start and his previous one – a brutal 1.1 IP outing against the Pittsburgh Pirates in which he was hammered for 8 ER while walking the world – he allowed a whopping 11 ER and 8 walks against just 2 K in 4.1 IP combined.
In part due to Lowder’s scheduled return, Chris Paddack has seemingly been bumped from the starting rotation for the time being. He’ll be available in relief in the meantime, though it remains to be seen what kind of role he’ll have when Lowder is activated in time for Sunday’s game.
