When the Cincinnati Reds signed right handed pitcher Raisel Iglesias late last summer he didn’t head out and begin pitching right away. He took some time off before heading out to the Arizona Fall League to make seven appearances. He was impressive, not allowing a run in the span, striking out seven batters, allowing one hit and walking three batters.
On Wednesday afternoon he made his first spring training appearance for the Reds as they took on the Indians. The outing could have gone better as he was charged with two unearned runs in an inning of work with two walks, a strikeout and a hit.
Let’s look beyond the numbers though. Iglesias allowed some hard contact in the inning. The first pitch he threw was hit to the warning track in left field but was tracked down by Jason Bourgeois. The next hitter lined a single into left. He followed that up by striking out Destin Hood.
Things then began to fall apart, partially on his side and partially on the defense. Iglesias began to struggle with the strikezone and walked the next batter. He got a ground ball to shortstop that should have ended the inning but the third baseman cut in front of the shortstop before deciding to let the shortstop play the ball, which was unknown to him and it rolled into the outfield and extended the inning.
Iglesias then walked the next batter to load the bases as he continued to struggle with his fastball location, leaving the pitch up in the zone consistently. He uncorked a wild pitch to bring in the go-ahead run for the Indians. After that he would get a fly out to end the inning, but he would wind up taking the loss due to allowing the two unearned runs in the inning.
The struggles with control and the hard contact were not good to see. Of course there was some good things to see as well. His fastball showed good life on it at times with armside running action to it. He flashed a good breaking ball. He was in a jam and he got a weak ground ball that should have ended the inning and holding the lead.
It was his first appearance on the mound for the Reds big league club in any capacity. Perhaps he was nervous, over throwing trying to impress… there could be plenty of things that were going on leading to some of the struggles he had. But there were good things that showed up as well. In his next outing we will see how he does, but look for the control as a sign that maybe he did have some “first day jitters” going on in his outing on Wednesday afternoon.