Friday night was opening night for Single-A Daytona, High-A Dayton, and Double-A Chattanooga. While those three clubs only had one win between them, there were some strong performances from the Cincinnati Reds top prospects to begin the year.
Chase Burns looks the part
Making his professional debut on Friday night with the Dayton Dragons, Chase Burns looked every bit the part of the 2024 #2 overall draft pick. Facing West Michigan, the right-handed starter threw 57 pitches in his 4.0, 1-hit innings. Burns didn’t allow a run, walked just one batter and he had six strikeouts. While there was no radar gun for the broadcast, I was told he worked in the upper 90’s and topped out at 100 MPH on the night.
We may not know as much as we would like if we were able to track the velocity on all of his pitches during the game, but what we do know, though, is that he flat out overmatched hitters on the night. He had the previously mentioned six strikeouts, but he also had four ground outs and just one fly out.
Chase Burns (@Reds) was stingy in his pro debut with High-A @DragonsBaseball:
4 IP
1 H
0 R
1 BB
6 K
57 pitches, 38 strikes pic.twitter.com/FtWImC6NM9— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) April 4, 2025
There were nine swinging strikes for Chase Burns out of his 57 pitches. Six of those came against his slider and another three were on the fastball. There wasn’t much contact made against him, but when there was, it wasn’t for much. The hit he allowed was an infield single. He got another out on a pop up to third base that broke the bat of the hitter. There were four ground outs. And the lone ball that made it out of the infield was a lazy fly ball to Carlos Jorge in left-center.
Edwin Arroyo returns to the field
13 months ago Edwin Arroyo was in big league camp with the Cincinnati Reds and he dove back to first base on a pickoff attempt. On the day that happened it wasn’t known to be such a bad injury that had occurred on the play. But shortly after the news came out that he would require shoulder surgery and that led to the shortstop missing the entirety of the 2024 regular season. He did return in time to play in the Arizona Fall League.
Starting at shortstop, Arroyo was leading off for the Chattanooga Lookouts on Friday night. He seemed to be making up for lost time as he picked up three hits on the night against the Rocket City Trash Pandas. The switch hitter had two hits from the left side of the plate, going 2-5 against right-handed pitchers on the evening. He would go 1-1 as a right-handed hitter.
Ruben Ibarra hits ’em far
In the five games played by the Cincinnati Reds organization on Friday there was only one home run hit. That homer came in the Chattanooga game and it came off of the bat of Ruben Ibarra. Or maybe I should say it exploded off of the bat because it went 445 feet and had an exit velocity of 114 MPH.
ALL ABOARD ?
Ruben Ibarra blasts the first Lookouts Longball of the year! pic.twitter.com/jyBc934nIY
— Chattanooga Lookouts (@ChattLookouts) April 5, 2025
At 445 feet, that’s now the longest home run in the organization this year. Of course it’s only the first night for three of the teams, but it also tops all seven of the home runs hit by the guys playing for the Louisville Bats this season. No Cincinnati Reds player has hit one that far, either, with Elly De La Cruz leading the way for the big league club at 436 feet among their seven home runs this year.