Cincinnati Reds #3 prospect Tyler Stephenson put together a good game on Thursday afternoon in the Reds 8-0 win over Arizona. He came on to replace Curt Casali behind the plate and drew a walk in his first plate appearance. In his second trip to the plate he stepped up with Francisco Pena on first base. After taking the first two pitches – both balls – Stephenson got a 91 MPH fastball middle-in and he didn’t miss it. The big right-handed hitter sent the baseball 415 feet and into the stands. It left his bat at 109 MPH. In the 9th inning he came up with the bases loaded. He took the first pitch he saw, a 94 MPH fastball, and lined it into right field for a 2-run double. For Stephenson he’s now 3-7 with a walk, two doubles, and a home run in his four games played for the Reds so far. He then did his best Punisher impression.
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— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) February 27, 2020
The Reds also got two other home runs on the day. Derek Dietrich got things started with a solo blast in the 2nd inning off of Madison Bumgarner. That shot put Cincinnati up 1-0, and the score stayed there until the top of the 7th. After an RBI double by Scott Schebler that was 113 MPH off of the bat – only one hit by the Reds in 2019 was harder than that – it was time for Alex Blandino to put a baseball over the fence with a 405-foot homer to left-center.
Mark Payton went 1-2 to raise his average to .364 early on this spring. Blake Trahan and Lorenzo Cedrola both racked up a hit on the day. Matt Davidson doubled.
On the mound there weren’t any prospects that took the mound today outside of Joel Kuhnel. He threw a shutout inning, picking up a strikeout while allowing a hit. One pitching note, though, was that Brooks Raley topped out just over 94 MPH on the day in his inning of work. That’s a bit harder than the reports on him were when he was in Korea – granted he was starting then, and today he was throwing just one inning. But it’s also February 27th.
Among the big leaguers, it was a nice start to the spring from Trevor Bauer as he fired off 2.0 perfect innings with two strikeouts. Tyler Thornburg, Sal Romano, Matt Bowman, David Carpenter, and R.J. Alaniz all had shutout innings of relief in the game. You can see the entire box score for the game here.