When Cincinnati Reds top prospect Robert Stephenson left his last start there were plenty of concerns. When I broke the news that it was nothing major, but that he just had some weird cramping going on in his wrist, some took a sigh of relief. Others jumped off of the deep end and started connecting his wrist to his elbow and the next thing you know, all kinds of crazy theories were being floated out there. Louisville Bats manager came out the next day and stated that Stephenson checked out fine and would miss one start, joining the Bats rotation “the next time through”, but he was placed on the 7-day disabled list.
It’s now been 10 days since he was placed on the disabled list, but he’s ready to come off and he will be making the start tonight in Louisville for the Bats. It turns out that the manager actually knew what he was talking about and that some people that didn’t go to medical school didn’t.
Assuming that the Bats remain on a normal 5-man rotation schedule, there should be three starts left in the regular season for the right hander. That would likely put him at, or very close to his innings pitched total of last season and assuming he’s able to remain healthy through those three starts, give him plenty of room to pitch for the big league club in September if the Reds choose to make that move.
Adding Stephenson to the club in September would let him get his feet wet in a less stressful environment and get the nerves out of the way now instead of at some point next season if they held off on calling him up. The organization will have to add him to the 40-man roster this offseason, so doing so in September wouldn’t be using up an option.
After struggling in his first seven starts of the season, the right hander has posted these numbers in his last 85.1 innings pitched, dating back to May 23rd:
| IP | H | HR | BB | K | ERA | WHIP |
| 85.1 | 53 | 6 | 35 | 96 | 2.64 | 1.03 |
He’s been dominant at times, most of the time actually, since that point as he’s split his time in Double-A with Pensacola and in Triple-A with the Louisville Bats. As the Reds will continue to need to watch the innings totals on several guys, giving some of those innings to Robert Stephenson in September may be a logical step towards building on what he’s done over the last three months of the season and get things kick started for the 2016 season.