Last June the Cincinnati Reds drafted Michael Lorenzen, a college reliever and outfielder from Cal State Fullerton. Many teams liked Lorenen as an outfielder where he showed off some power potential and plus speed in center field. The Reds though saw his power arm and didn’t seem to think twice that he could be a quality pitcher. Shortly after he was drafted the Reds said that Lorenzen would be a pitcher and they sent him to four different levels as a reliever during the regular season where he saw some success and some struggles.
Then the Reds sent him to the Arizona Fall League to begin making the transition to starting pitcher. It simply didn’t go well from a production standpoint. After struggling with the strikezone during the regular season, walking 13 batters in 21 innings, he walked 12 more in 17.1 innings as a starter, but his strikeout total dropped to just four in those 17.1 innings pitched. The Reds stated that they weren’t concerned with the results, but they just wanted him to get used to the routine of pitching as a starter. This spring they invited him to big league camp, though he only worked as a reliever, throwing 7.1 innings with five walks and four strikeouts.
Last night he made his regular season debut as a starting pitcher, in what seemed to be a bit of an aggressive placement at the Double-A level in Pensacola for a guy who not only was new to pitching so-to-speak, but also moving to the rotation after having battled control problems the season before. Well, at least last night it seemed the Reds knew that Lorenzen could handle the jump as he dominated the Tennessee Smokies for 7 shutout innings where he allowed just four hits, no walks and struck out six batters while inducing 12 ground outs and one fly ball out. Oh, all four hits were also groundballs.
From a scouting point of view, it was the best look I have seen from Lorenzen and it wasn’t particularly close. For the most part, he controlled his fastball well and mixed in his slider often, while also showing control of it. His mechanics were repeated well and seemed to overthrow less often. It was tough to get the best gauge on exactly how often he threw all of his pitches because the video feed showed about 15 pitches throughout the game from above the field level and behind home plate, but of the ones that he threw from the traditional center field camera angle he worked mostly with his fastball and slider. He mixed in a few change ups though and they looked better than the one he showed last year.
While it is just one start, it was a heck of one start. He controlled his pitches and overmatched hitters, something he hadn’t really done against the more advanced guys he has faced in his short professional career thus far. As an elite athlete, one who could have been a top 50 pick as either a pitcher or a position player, Lorenzen is the kind of guy who have the light simply switch on for him on the mound and make fast, dramatic improvements. If the start last night was a sign of things to come for the right hander, perhaps sticking as a starting pitcher isn’t as much of a long shot as it seemed as recently as March.