Fresh off a World Baseball Classic performance that saw him plate the winning run for Team Venezuela in the championship game, Eugenio Suárez is back in camp with the Cincinnati Reds in Arizona. On Friday evening, he’ll return to Cincinnati’s lineup for their road game against the Chicago Cubs over in Mesa.
Brandon Williamson will get the start on the evening, now doing so knowing full well he’s already made the Opening Day roster after the Reds opted to roll with all three young starters who were,
for a time, in competition with one another for the fifth spot in the team’s starting rotation. Suárez, for the record, will play 3B on the night as Cincinnati remains committed to getting him at least a little bit of time on the field defensively in lieu of him being exclusively a DH.
As the Reds continue to move their guys all over the place, Sal Stewart will start at 1B tonight while Spencer Steer gets some run in LF.
First pitch in this one is slated for 9:05 PM ET as the Land of the Endless Strip Mall faces an extreme heat wave, so hopefully the dry desert air will allow it to cool off significantly as the game goes on.
Sadly, this one won’t be televised. You’ll have to tune in to 700 WLW and lean on Gameday to be able to follow tonight’s action.
Doug Gray of Redleg Nation was kind enough to relay the travel roster for the evening, which features non-roster slugger Nate Lowe on the bench. I’m not 100% sure if that’s a tell that he’s still very much in-line for a spot on the team’s Opening Day roster, but the fact that he’s still travelling with the club in a road game (and not even starting) is a pretty good tell, I’d say.
