The Cincinnati Reds have promoted their 2019 1st round draft pick Nick Lodolo from the Billings Mustangs to the Dayton Dragons. The 7th overall pick in the 2019 draft, and the first pitcher taken had spent the first six games of his career in the Pioneer League with Billings. The Reds had controlled his workload quite a bit while he was with the Mustangs. Lodolo threw 103.0 innings while pitching this season at Texas Christian University before being drafted.
Over his six starts for the Mustangs, Nick Lodolo only threw 11.1 innings. The 21-year-old left-handed pitcher only made it into the third inning of two games. It wasn’t due to a lack of performance. He allowed three earned runs in that span (2.38 ERA), didn’t walk a single batter, and he struck out 21 of the 46 batters that he faced.
For Nick Lodolo, he was rather dominant in the Pioneer League. That’s what you would expect for the top pitcher coming out of the draft that’s out of college. Clearly the Reds wanted to protect his arm and keep his workload low – which is easier to do in Billings where they have rosters of 35 players. In full-season leagues the rosters are limited to 25 players, which makes it tougher to keep guys as starters, but also throwing 40-50 pitches in a start.
As things are scheduled right now, Nick Lodolo is scheduled to make his debut in Dayton on Thursday night as the starting pitcher.