Michael Lorenzen to pitch out of the Reds bullpen in the short term

I sat down to write an article about Raisel Iglesias’ start for the Reds tonight. Then this popped up on twitter from Kevin Goheen:

Price said #Reds are discussing what’s next for Iglesias. Says Lorenzen going to work out of bullpen w/4 off days coming up thru June 1.

— Kevin Goheen (@FSOGoGo) May 14, 2015

Michael Lorenzen will be watched for his innings in 2015. He threw 125.2 innings last season in Double-A and historically the Reds have added roughly 30 innings to the next season. That would seem to be the best bet for what the Reds will do with Lorenzen here as well, giving him somewhere in the neighborhood of 155-160 innings to work with for 2015. Protecting his arm in the long haul is important, so it’s understandable that the Reds will skip him when the opportunity is available.

Lorenzen is currently listed as the probably on the 17th against the Giants, but with what was tweeted out earlier by Kevin Goheen, that seems to be changing. I’ve gone ahead and run through the schedule over the next few weeks to see how the rotation could work out, assuming that there are no rain outs.

As things stand right now, the team won’t need a 5th starting option until May 26th, two weeks from now. They will also not need one again until June 6th.

It’s certainly possible that the Reds could use someone else on May 26th to give Lorenzen an even longer layoff from starting if they choose, bringing up a spot starter from Triple-A, or they could just go with Lorenzen there and then put him back in the bullpen for a week before getting him back into the rotation for the 6th of June.

If the Reds can save 15 innings with this plan, that could realistically get Lorenzen through the entire season without the need to shut him down at any point, especially if they pitch him last out of the all-star break.