On Monday night out in Arizona Aaron Watson made his first start of his career. The 2025 2nd round pick by the Cincinnati Reds had pitched in three games prior to Monday’s contest but he pitched out of the bullpen in a piggyback situation, throwing 4.0, 4.0, and 4.2 innings in each of those games.
In several ways Monday night saw Watson pitch his worst game of the season. While he did have a career high 5.0 innings he allowed eight hits, three earned runs, and had three strikeouts – all representing the worst of any of his four games. But mixed in with that were the 18 balls in play he allowed and 13 of those were groundballs.
Entering the day, Aaron Watson had been getting plenty of grounders. 57% of the batted balls he had allowed in his first three games, but on Monday that rate was 72%. That pushed his season rate to 63%. To give that some context, the average groundball rate in Major League Baseball in 2026 is 42%, which is where it’s been for a while now. Watson has only thrown 17.2 innings this season, but among pitches with 20.0 innings pitched in the Reds farm system this year only Taylor Floyd tops that 63% groundball rate with his 68.7% mark (which is second in all of minor league baseball among pitchers with at least 20.0 innings pitched). Watson’s rate would be tied for 11th among 1081 pitchers to throw 20.0 innings in the minors this season.
In that same game Steele Hall extended his hitting streak to 10 games and his on-base streak to 15 games. The only game this year in which he’s failed to reach base was the first game of his career when he went 0-5 with three strikeouts. The hits weren’t falling in early on and he had just three hits through the first six games, but he had also walked eight times during that stretch.
But on May 12th he went 1-3 with two walks, a triple, and three runs scored. The 1st round pick from 2025 has not looked back at all since, picking up at least one hit in 10 straight games and hitting .400/.490/.800 with 11 extra-base hits during the streak. Hall had doubled in six straight games before Monday night when he only picked up a single to end that streak. It was only his second game during the hitting streak in which he didn’t have an extra-base hit.
Ricky Cabrera is out for the year
This was included in the game notes the other day but for those who missed it, Reds #19 prospect Ricky Cabrera is out for the 2026 season. In 2025 his season came to an end on May 2nd in Fort Wayne when he suffered a knee injury on a collision at first base as he attempted to beat out a grounder for an infield hit. He would undergo surgery shortly after that. Baseball America was the first to report that Cabrera underwent another surgery on his knee and that it would cost him the remainder of the year. Cincinnati made that official last week when he was moved to the full-season injured list.