If you try hard to remember, you’ll actually recall that the Cincinnati Reds spent a good chunk of the 2025 regular season carrying six starting pitchers – at minimum – on their active roster. Such was the luxury of having Nick Martinez around all year, his versatility the linchpin in making sure the rest of the rotation was always as rested as could be.
Once they acquired Zack Littell and promoted Chase Burns, they almost always had more options than a typical 5-man rotation at any given point down
the stretch. It’s simply necessary in the modern game, what with max effort velocities and the inevitable injuries that come with them.
It appears the Reds are more than just comfortable with that concept. So comfortable that manager Terry Francona revealed to C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic on Tuesday afternoon that they’ll carry six starters come Opening Day 2026.
Rhett Lowder and Brandon Williamson will make the team after both missing all (or 97%, in Lowder’s case) of the 2025 regular season with injuries. Chase Burns, meanwhile, will make the team despite having run into some mid-spring load management after not recovering well enough from an extended start. Those three will join Brady Singer, Nick Lodolo, and Andrew Abbott on the team’s roster as starting options, something the club will get to juggle early on.
It’s not the end of the world, aside from the fact that it’s Hunter Greene’s months-long absence that even opened this opportunity. The reality is that none of Lowder, Williamson, or Burns was going to approach anything akin to 170+ IP after shortened 2025 campaigns – don’t forget that Burns was shut down for a while with forearm pain and eventually migrated to a fireman role in the bullpen.
So, effectively spreading out their innings now is what’s going to begin the process lest the Reds run into a scenario where they simply have to shut a guy down in, say, an August stretch run that has them chasing a playoff spot. Former Enquirer beat writer Charlie Goldsmith added more context from Francona which more or less echoes this.
Goldsmith also casually dropped that both Connor Phillips and Will Benson have been told they’ve made the team, with Benson’s addition meaning, in all likelihood, that only one of Nate Lowe or JJ Bleday will make the club, too.
Quite the interesting series of developments ahead of tonight’s matchup against their Goodyear brethren the Cleveland Guardians!
