C. Notes: Reds' Hunter Greene progressing from All-Star to Cy Young Award candidate (2024)

CINCINNATI — Cincinnati Reds starter Hunter Greene’s stuff has never been a question to anyone. His blazing fastball and sharp slider are obvious outlier pitches that are the envy of just about anyone who has ever picked up a baseball.

Saturday night, when Greene struck out 11 San Francisco Giants while allowing just one hit and a walk over six innings, those pitches were certainly on display. But that was nothing new to Giants catcher Curt Casali, who didn’t have to face him Saturday but had caught Greene last year when Casali was with the Reds.

The difference between Greene a year ago and today was less measurable by baseball’s new technology and more evident to Casali based on the things a catcher sees.

“I think as young as Hunter is, he can go balls to the wall from the get — that’s what it looked like yesterday,” Casali said Sunday morning before the Reds’ 8-2 loss to the Giants. “He looked like he had a point to prove, and point taken.”

Greene started the day after the Giants’ Blake Snell, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, no-hit the Reds. It was Snell’s first complete game and even the first time he pitched in the ninth inning of a start.

Greene didn’t throw a no-hitter, but he certainly looked like he could’ve against the Giants, striking out the side in the first and allowing only a ground-ball single between first and second to Michael Conforto in the fourth inning.

Hunter Greene of the @Reds is the only MLB pitcher in the modern era to throw at least 30.0 innings while allowing no more than 10 hits and no more than 1 run over a 5-start span. pic.twitter.com/YVLO1AEAyz

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) August 4, 2024

Since being named to the All-Star team July 9, Greene is 3-0 with 0.35 ERA in four starts, allowing just one run on a Michael Toglia home run in a July 11 game against the Colorado Rockies. That’s one of just seven hits over that stretch and the only extra-base hit. Add in his seven shutout innings against the Detroit Tigers on July 6, and batters are putting up just a .094/.193/.123 line against him since the start of July. He’s gone from being part of the All-Star discussion to Cy Young Award consideration.

Greene leads Baseball-Reference’s WAR leaderboard for pitchers (5.1) and is fourth in FanGraphs’ version (3.3). Greene is 8-4 with a 2.83 ERA in 22 starts.

“I think making an All-Star team is huge for his confidence. He’s been awesome in the second half so far, he’s trending in the right direction,” Casali said. “It looks like he’s pitching like he’s got a point to prove, and it’s pretty obvious when he’s on the mound that he’s like, ‘I’m here now.’”

Casali was behind the plate last year for perhaps the previous best four-game stretch of Greene’s career, when the second-year right-hander went 2-1 with a 2.31 ERA from May 26 to June 17.

Greene started that stretch with six no-hit innings and 11 strikeouts at Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs and continued at Boston, St. Louis and Houston.

Greene then went on the injured list for hip pain. And when he returned, Casali was on the injured list, so they didn’t get to work together again.

Over those four games, Greene had 31 strikeouts and 11 walks over 23 1/3 innings, the lowest strikeout-to-walk ratio with any of the catchers. The .161/.266/.284 line with Casali behind the plate was also the lowest it was with any catcher (of course, so were the number of innings).

He was even better than that Saturday, Casali said.

“His intent, I thought, was a lot more extreme,” Casali said. “It was more fast-paced, getting into his legs more quickly. His pace was quicker, his momentum was just fireballs down the end zone. He was throwing hard. He had 100 in the tank in his final inning and his slider, off the bat, I thought was sweeping good. He didn’t ever really need to throw hardly any splits.”

All ELEVEN strikeouts of yet another scoreless start for Hunter Greene 🔥 pic.twitter.com/JuphtrXUjg

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) August 4, 2024

Greene had 21 swings-and-misses among his 100 pitches, including one on his split-finger that he threw just 11 times. Giants batters swung at half (18) of the sliders (36) he threw and missed on nearly a third of of them (11). At no point did he hit 100 on the radar gun (top speed 99.7 mph) but Giants hitters knew it was there from Pitch 1 to Pitch 100.

“‘Oh, that’s the Hunter Greene that signed the big extension, that was No. 2 overall. There he is,’” Casali said of his teammates’ reactions to Greene. “Sometimes it takes a little longer, but man he’s got as high of a ceiling as anyone in the league and he’s got a good head on his shoulders. I’m excited to see him. I’ve seen it from both sides and he’s a good guy and I’m excited to see what he can do over the rest of his career.”

From Bearcat (to Brewer) to Red

Joey Wiemer grew up in the Toledo area, so his childhood allegiances were with the Tigers in baseball and Lions in football, but much of that (aside from his Lions fandom) shifted when he went south on I-75 to the University of Cincinnati.

“It’s been Cincy everything since then,” Wiemer said Sunday after being promoted from Triple-A Louisville to Cincinnati for Sunday’s game when the Reds placed outfielder Will Benson on the paternity list.

(“Unfortunately, I’m still a Lions fan,” he noted.)

Wiemer lives in Cincinnati in the offseason and trains at UC in the winter. He has an apartment in town that he keeps all year, so moving to Cincinnati was probably the best-case scenario for him.

Wieimer was traded to the Reds from Milwaukee last week in exchange for starter Frankie Montas. He was at Triple-A Nashville when his manager there, former Reds minor-league manager Rick Sweet, called him to deliver the news.

“Stoked, super excited,” Wiemer said of his initial reaction to the trade.

Wiemer was ranked No. 91 among all prospects in baseball ahead of the 2023 season by The Athletic’s Keith Law. At the time, Law wrote: “He has some huge tools and should be valuable even if he doesn’t hit for much average. He’s a super-athletic outfielder who’s a plus defender in center, with 60 speed and a 70 or better arm. He has ridiculous power — I had a scout refer to it as ‘stupid power,’ and he meant that as a compliment — that should lead to 25-30 homers a year in the majors.”

Wiemer earned a spot on the Brewers’ Opening Day roster last year, but he began this year in Triple A with a brief call-up in April and another, briefer one in May.

In college and coming up through the minors, the 6-foot-4 Wiemer has been compared a bit to Hunter Pence because of his unorthodox swing and gangly frame.

“That’s my favorite comp in terms of being unorthodox, athletic, just kind of letting myself play,” Wiemer said.

After a rough rookie campaign that saw Wiemer hit .204/.283/.362 with 13 homers and 11 steals in 410 plate appearances last year, the Brewers changed his swing. Wiemer said he’s changed it quite a bit in the last month and started feeling better about where his swing stands.

“I’m excited with the adjustments I’ve made,” Wiemer said. “At the beginning of the season, I made those big adjustments and I feel like I way overdid it in terms of taking athleticism out of my swing and kind of locked myself up. But I feel like I’m in a really good place right now.”

Wiemer made his Reds debut when he entered Sunday’s game in center field in the sixth. He went to right the next inning and walked in his only plate appearance.

Wiemer is the first former Bearcat to play for the Reds since right-handed reliever Art Warren (2021 and 2022).

The week that was

The Reds went .500 on the homestand, but the headlines were the trade deadline that saw Montas, Lucas Sims, Austin Slater and Livan Soto depart and then getting no-hit Friday night. The Reds took two of three from the Cubs before dropping two of three to the Giants.

The week ahead

The Reds head to Miami to play four games against the Marlins before a weekend series in Milwaukee. With Montas traded, right-hander Nick Martinez will start for the Reds in his hometown of Miami. Martinez threw an inning in relief Friday in what replaced a bullpen day for him.

Injury updates

• SS Matt McLain (left shoulder) suffered a setback in his rehab with a stress reaction in his rib cage. The Reds shut him down through at least the weekend. It’s still possible, Reds manager David Bell said, that he could begin his rehab assignment as scheduled Aug. 12.

• RHP Emilio Pagán (right lat strain) pitched a scoreless inning Saturday in his first outing of a rehab assignment with Triple-A Louisville. He’s expected to make at least three appearances at Triple A before returning. He is eligible to return Thursday.

• RHP Ian Gibaut (right forearm strain) had his anticipated rehab assignment postponed after a calf muscle injury.

• LHP Brent Suter (partial tear of left teres major muscle) had an MRI on Friday that showed substantial healing, allowing him to begin throwing Friday.

• C Austin Wynns (right teres major tear) was put on the IL on Monday after suffering the injury on a throw to third in the July 28 loss at Tampa Bay. Wynns is likely out until at least September.

• RHP Graham Ashcraft (right elbow strain) had a platelet-rich plasma injection in his elbow recently and isn’t expected to return to throwing until later this month.

Minor-league roundup

• Triple-A Louisville (51-55): RHP Justus Sheffield, the younger brother of Jordan Sheffield, has had two awful starts for the Bats, giving up 12 earned runs over a combined three innings, but he has allowed just two runs on eight hits over 19 1/3 innings in his four other starts. He even threw five hitless, scoreless innings in his start between the two bad ones. The 28-year-old gave up two runs on two hits in five innings Sunday, taking the loss to move to 0-3 with a 5.33 ERA for the Bats in seven appearances and six starts.

• Double-A Chattanooga (31-69): Rhett Lowder has continued his turnaround in Double A. The Reds’ first-round pick from last year began this season at High-A Dayton, where he dominated in his first taste of pro baseball. But he went 0-4 with a 7.15 ERA in his first eight starts at the higher level. In those games, he allowed 47 hits and 27 runs (all earned) with eight walks and 37 strikeouts in 34 innings. He picked up his first Double-A win June 27, and in six starts beginning with that game against the Rocket City Trash Pandas, he has gone 3-0. He allowed 25 hits and nine runs (all earned) with eight walks and 27 strikeouts over 31 1/3 innings. Thursday, he picked up the win against Pensacola, allowing a run on three hits in six innings to a team that battered him with six runs in five innings June 21.

• High-A Dayton (55-47): IF Cam Collier is on a 10-game on-base streak that’s seen him put up 15 hits in 37 at-bats, walk six times while striking out just eight times and getting hit twice. He’s also had a pair of homers and four doubles in that span, putting up a .405/.511/.676 line over 45 plate appearances. Since being named the MVP of the Futures Game, he’s hitting .340/.456/.553 in 13 games.

• Low-A Daytona (48-51): Since coming off the IL on June 16, OF Yerlin Confidan has hit .273/.384/.477 with 15 doubles and three homers in 34 games. He’s struck out 36 times but has also walked 22 times.

Sunday’s Tortugas game against Dunedin was canceled due to the impending arrival of Tropical Storm Debby and will not be made up.

(Top photo: Albert Cesare / The Enquirer / USA Today)