Hunter Greene makes Cactus League debut for Reds vs. Angels on Sunday

Can the Reds ace finally be The Reds Ace™ this year?

Are we sleeping on Hunter Greene?

Through 14 starts last year, the fireballing righty of the Cincinnati Reds pitched to a tidy-enough 3.93 ERA, striking out 100 against just 31 walks in 73.1 IP. His 3.56 FIP was even more impressive, and the homer-prone nature of his previous work had been held relatively in-check (just 7 in that time).

He was pitching through some hip pain for a lot of that, too – hip pain that would eventually worsen and lead to over two months on the shelf while on the 60-day IL. He allowed 5 dingers and 8 ER in just 3.0 IP when he finally returned in late August, and was shelled overall to the tune of a 6.52 ERA (5.56 FIP) in 8 GS from the time he returned until the end of the season. He allowed 10 dingers in just 38.2 IP in that time.

Greene’s fully healthy again, however, and he’ll be on the mound for the Reds to start today’s Cactus League game in Goodyear against the Los Angeles Angels.

As Charlie Goldsmith of The Enquirer noted last week, Greene’s working to add a splitter (and a curveball) to his burgeoning repertoire, an arsenal revamp that could help him take things to the next level. Given that so much of his dinger-yielding came on his four-seamer, adding a splitter might be the perfect mix-up to his fastball offerings to keep hitters even more off-keel.

Who knows how much of the new-look we’ll see from Greene on the bump today, but we’ll at least see him begin to stretch out into the guy who will hopefully lead the pitching staff to the next level this year.

First pitch today is again set for 3:05 PM ET. Sadly, the Angels are playing split-squad games today, and Mike Trout stayed home in Tempe. So, you’ll get to follow this two-bit lineup for today’s game instead.

Best I can tell, this game is only available on radio at 700 WLW (or through the MLB At-Bat app). No watching this one, sadly!