Farmers Only Weekly Harvest - Andrew Abbott dominates, Matt McLain ready for a call-up

While the back-end of the Cincinnati Reds rotation has been a hot mess and the bullpen has, more often than not, struggled to find its own way, a pair of 23 year old hurlers have been making their names known across the team’s farm.

Andrew “Hey!” Abbott deserves his own thousand-page novel at this point, but I’ll give him a paragraph for the bare minimum. The UVa product and former 2nd round pick finally surrendered some runs this week - 2 ER in 5.0 IP against the AA Tennessee Smokies on the 19th - but fanned another 11 in his 93 pitch outing. That brings his season total of Ks to an absurd 36 on the season in just 15.2 IP, with those lone 2 ER yielded the only scratch on him so far for the Chattanooga Lookouts.

It’s in a much different environment for many different reasons, but Lyon Richardson - himself a former 2nd round pick - has rounded back into form of late, too. Pitching for Class-A Daytona due its warmer weather as he works his way back from the Tommy John surgery that cost him all of 2022, Richardson has looked more like the electric arm that fascinated the Reds while he was a prep baller. He has been on pitch-counts and has therefore fired just 3.0 IP in each of his trio of appearances so far this year, the most recent of which - 3.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K against the Bradenton Marauders - was just as dominant as his previous two. For the year he has fired 9.0 IP of ER ball with just 5 H and a lone walk allowed against 18 K. My guess is that he’ll be with AA Chattanooga as soon as it’s warm consistently there, perhaps even replacing Abbott in the Lookouts rotation when the lefty kicks his way to AAA Louisville - or Cincinnati, even.

More on last week’s farm action below!

Class-A Daytona Tortugas

It was a rough week for the Tugas, who dropped 6 of the 7 games they played. It should come as no surprise that their youthful bats went silent during that rough stretch, which contributed mightily to the skid.

Ariel “If you’ll be my bodyguard, I can be your long lost” Almonte finally yakked his first homer of the season, however, and that was a solid development.

High-A Dayton Dragons

The Dragons wrapped their series against Great Lakes with a loss last Sunday before taking 3 of 5 against the West Michigan WhiteCaps to finish up this week. Austin “Fox in the” Hendrick had a trio of 2-hit games dating back to the 16th before belting his first homer of the season yesterday - a game that saw fellow former 1st round pick Mat “Craig T.” Nelson swat his 3rd dinger of the young season, too.

Mike “Robbed of the 2015 AL MVP Award” Trautwein one-upped them both by homering both yesterday and Saturday.

AA Chattanooga Lookouts

Jacob “Ben” Hurtubise has gone 9 for 25 with a pair of dingers dating back to the 15th of April, and the speedster homered in back to back games over the weekend against the Tennessee Smokies, who I’m beginning to believe is the only team who Chattanooga ever plays. Connor “66” Phillips spun a gem on the 20th against said Smokies, yielding just a lone ER in 5.0 IP while striking out 11. Joe “Crawfish” Boyle turned in a dominant outing of his own on the 22nd, shutting down Tennessee with 5.2 IP of scoreless ball in which he struck out 12 and, for him, yielded only a meager 4 walks. Progress!

AAA Louisville Bats

The Bats had a solid 4-2 week against the Charlotte Knights, but that’s hardly the biggest news there. Both Elly De La Cruz and Christian Encarnacion-Strand returned to action this week, giving a boost not only to the Bats but also to the idea that the Cincinnati Reds might actually get rescued from the doldrums by them at some point soon. That said, it remains Matt “Yippy Ki-Yay” McLain carrying the squad, as he singled and walked 3 times on Sunday after going 4 for 14 with a homer and 5 walks earlier in the week. The dude has 15 walks in 19 games while also leading the club in homers, to date, and should probably be plying his trade in the big leagues yesterday. Hat-tip to Ben Lively for firing 6.0 IP of 2 ER ball mid-week, too.