It was an interesting night for Hunter Greene. He was scratched from his last start but was ready to go this time around – as expected. On the mound he allowed three home runs in the first three innings. The final home run came with two outs in the 3rd inning. The next batter, who had homered earlier in the game, had a 102 MPH fastball go behind him at roughly thigh height. He took some exception to it, as did the Gwinnett dugout, who began chirping. Stripers catcher Ryan Casteel apparently chirped too much because he was ejected from the game.
At that point the umpires got together halfway up the first base line. After discussing things for a minute they turned around and ejected Hunter Greene from the game. It was impossible to see if this was because Greene said something back to the dugout or if the umpires during their meeting determined the pitch was on purpose – the camera at the time was not on either Greene or the umpires. Once Greene was ejected Louisville manager Pat Kelly stormed onto the field to try and figure out why his pitcher was tossed from the game, and it didn’t last long before he was also ejected. Greene’s final line on the day: 2.2IP, 4H, 4ER, 1BB, 4K.
2nd rounder Andrew Abbott debuts
This past week the Cincinnati Reds have finally had some pitchers that were selected in the 2021 draft making their debuts out in Arizona. With the draft not taking place until mid-July, pitchers had gone 6-8 weeks since they last pitched in games and many teams have taken the approach to either shut them down for the year or bring a few of them along very slowly to get them onto the field. On Tuesday it was time for Cincinnati’s 2nd round pick Andrew Abbott to make his professional debut. The lefty from the University of Virginia tossed a perfect inning with two strikeouts to start the game. That was the only inning he would throw.