The Reds Futures game was last night at Great American Ballpark. The Futures team took home the 7 inning win, 2-1. Donald Lutz hit a 2 run home run in the 4th inning off of Mike Leake to take care of the scoring for the Futures team. Here is the Box Score for the game from the Futures team (Lohman and Waldrop actually suited up for the Reds team later in the game in order to get everyone into the game):
| Reds Futures | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO |
| Hamilton, DH | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| LaMarre, CF | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Phipps, RF-LF | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Soto, 1B | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lutz, LF | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Rodriguez, Y, RF | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Gregorius, SS | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Greene, 2B | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Wright, 2B | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Vidal, D, 3B | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Barnhart, C | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Fleury, C | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lohman, 2B* | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Waldrop, LF* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Reds Futures | IP | H | ER | BB | SO | HR |
| Corcino | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Hoover(W, 1-0) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| Lotzkar(H, 1) | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Sulbaran(H, 1) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Cingrani(S, 1) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Zack Cozart provided the only offense for the Reds with a solo home run off of Kyle Lotzkar to left center into the ‘visitors’ bullpen. The Futures pitching was strong. Pitch F/X was running during the game, but I won’t be able to get into that until later this evening, so expect that for Thursday or Friday (depending on how things go, I have another article planned for Thursday since it is Opening Day for the minor leagues as well).
My quick notes from what I was able to observe: Billy Hamilton is still really fast. He was caught stealing in the game, but not because the throw beat him. He overslid the bag and was tagged before he could reach back and grab it. Yorman Rodriguez has a special bat. He only had one at bat in the game and it was against Aroldis Chapman who was firing 98 MPH fastballs and a 94 MPH slider at him, but in batting practice he was showing off some very easy power. Donald Lutz can crush a baseball. In batting practice he was hitting line drives that weren’t getting more than 10-15 feet in the air that were leaving the park for home runs that off the bat seemed like singles. I couldn’t help but think that JJ Hoover used his one inning stint as a “hey Dusty, look at me” audition since he wasn’t able to pitch in spring training. He didn’t seem to disappoint. David Vidal seems to make an impressive defensive play every time I get to see him play. Were you at the game? Share some of your thoughts if you were. I felt bad for Kyle Waldrop. He was on deck for the Reds when the final out of the game was made. I kept wondering why they didn’t just bat out of order to give him a chance to swing the bat.
Tom Groeschen has up some stuff from the game over on the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Reds blog. Go check it out.
Jeff Wallner has up some stuff from the game at Reds.com as well.
I have a lot on tap for the site between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, including team previews and some prospect video from the Futures game, so be sure to check back in.