Cactus League Game 6: Reds at Royals

Sal Romano gets his second start of Cactus League play today, as the Cincinnati Reds travel to Surprise, AZ to take on the Kansas City Royals. Romano flashed solid stuff in his first outing of spring, allowing just a lone solo dinger in his 2 IP. It’ll be interesting to see how much deeper in the game he’s tasked with going, but my guess is that he’ll be up against a 40-ish pitch count.

Cody Reed, Ariel Hernandez, and Austin Brice are among the pitchers listed as available today, the first two of which could certainly use bounce-back outings after being shelled in their first appearances of spring.

First pitch is set for 3:05 PM ET. No TV feed today, unfortunately, but the Reds radio broadcast can be found on 1360 WSAI and through the MLB At-Bat app.

Cincinnati Lineup

Kansas City Lineup

Other Notes

• It sounds as though Brandon Finnegan will finally pitch tomorrow, though it won’t be in the Reds’ Cactus League game. Instead, he’ll pitch in an intersquad game, as The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans reported earlier. That still just seems weird to me given the ‘good to go’ and ‘no holdbacks or nothing’ comments he made to The Enquirer’s John Fay almost two full weeks ago when camp initially began. If the club wants to take it slow with him, so be it, but the cryptic nature around the entire thing is just odd, especially given how assertive Bryan Price has been about Finnegan already being a lock for a rotation spot.
• MLB Pipeline named the Cincinnati farm system the 8th best in the league earlier today, as well as updated their Top 30 prospects in the system. You can read more about that here.
• Oliver Perez is also listed as available to pitch today, so there’s a chance the recently signed LOOGY candidate gets his debut with the club.
• Nick Senzel is starting at shortstop today. That’s in the lineup up there, which I know you read, but it’s still worth typing just to make myself smile.