CINCINNATI \u2014 Cincinnati Reds starter Andrew Abbott\u2019s rough spring training was dismissed as an aberration after he threw six scoreless innings against the Boston Red Sox on Opening Day. After he gave up seven runs in three-plus innings in Sunday\u2019s 9-6 loss to the Los Angeles Angels, the question becomes, was Opening Day the outlier?<\/p>\n
Abbott gave up three runs on five hits in the first inning and then another pair of runs on two hits in the second, getting bailed out by a base-running blunder by Jo Adell that kept the Reds\u2019 deficit to five. After retiring the order in the third, Abbott gave up a solo home run to start the fourth and then walked No. 9 Bryce Tedosio, ending his day before his team\u2019s offense had a hit against Angels starter Jos\u00e9 Soriano.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake what you can learn from it and move on to the next one,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cWe have a long season, and I\u2019m going to have plenty more starts. It\u2019s important to learn from it and grow, and everyone\u2019s going to have rough outings, and it\u2019s about how you respond and how you come back the next time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Reds still have a winning record at 9-7 despite fielding one of the game\u2019s worst offenses, in part because until this last time through the rotation, they were getting consistent starting pitching and not overly taxing their bullpen. Over the last five games leading into Monday\u2019s much-needed off day, the team\u2019s five starters combined to go 0-4 with a 10.62 ERA. In that stretch, Chase Burns and Rhett Lowder each pitched into the sixth inning. None of the other three starters \u2014 Abbott, Brady Singer or Brandon Williamson \u2014 made it to the fifth inning, much less through it. The team\u2019s record during that stretch: 1-4.<\/p>\n
The last time Abbott started, he allowed only two runs in 5 1\/3 innings. But he\u2019s dealt with the consequence of starting Opening Day: the four starters opposite of him so far have been Garrett Crochet, Paul Skenes, Sandy Alcantara and now Soriano. The latter doesn\u2019t have the accolades of the other three (two Cy Young winners and last year\u2019s runner-up for the award in the American League), but he has maybe been the best of the four so far this year.<\/p>\n
Soriano allowed just two singles over seven scoreless innings. He walked three and struck out 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came as advertised,\u201d Reds manager Terry Francona said. \u201cHe\u2019s got high-90s two-seam movement, breaking ball, split, and then he four-seams it every once in a while up high. He\u2019s pretty impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abbott gave up eight hits, but of those, only half were hit harder than 95 mph off the bat, and the hardest of the first three hits was 86.6 mph off the bat. Last season, Abbott\u2019s average exit velocity was in the 84th percentile at 87.8 mph. Only the final two hits he allowed Sunday were hit harder than 100 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just not as easy as you want it to be, when it\u2019s kind of a grind,\u201d Francona said. \u201cHe\u2019ll be OK. He wasn\u2019t as bad as the line looked. That\u2019s the point I\u2019m trying to make.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abbott said he actually felt good, especially in the first, but the balls were hit where his fielders weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got some soft contact that just found some holes,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cCredit those guys being able to hit my stuff in and out of the zone. I just didn\u2019t step up and make pitches when I needed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each of the first three hits came on 2-2 counts. This season, Abbott\u2019s chase rate is 26.9 percent, down from 30.2 percent last year. His whiff rate is 19 percent, down from 24 percent last season. Without getting swings-and-misses, hitters can put defensive swings in play, and those can find holes.<\/p>\n
To Abbott, the problem isn\u2019t physical as much as it is adjusting to hitters and being intentional with what he wants to do. With Jos\u00e9 Trevino on the injured list, Tyler Stephenson started six of the Reds\u2019 last seven games. P.J. Higgins, called up for Thursday\u2019s game, made his second start Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the plan was pretty good \u2014 I think I could\u2019ve shook to different pitches in different counts, and maybe I think I repeated certain pitches to certain people,\u201d Abbott said. \u201c(Oswald) Peraza, I threw three changeups to start him off \u2026 the third one he hammered. Major-league hitters are going to make the adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abbott said he wanted to add more cutters. He threw just two Sunday \u2014 one was fouled off, and the other was a ball. He also threw just four sweepers among his 71 pitches (5.6 percent). Last year, the pitch counted for 13.8 percent of his pitches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t been executing it as I have in the past, and I\u2019d say that has a little bit to do with it,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cWe\u2019re still working on it. It\u2019s still really good, and it moves a lot, and it\u2019s hard to hit anything that moves in this league. I think it\u2019s more of a trust thing \u2014 I\u2019ve hung more than I used to, so I definitely think it\u2019s not getting used to (right-handed hitters), but I think there\u2019s also truth in that throwing it more probably will lead to it getting back to where it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there is a positive, he\u2019s been successful with one of his main goals from this offseason: inducing ground balls. His ground-ball rate has nearly doubled, going from 32.9 percent in 2025 to 58.2 percent in his first four starts this season. If he can continue that with the ability to put away batters with two pitches, it should be enough to return him to form.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love being in the air when they stay in the ballpark,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cIf they\u2019re on the ground, we normally have a better chance of getting an out, and they just weren\u2019t in the right spots (Sunday).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014 Cincinnati Reds starter Andrew Abbott\u2019s rough spring training was dismissed as an aberration after he threw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,9004],"class_list":["post-265547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-cincinnati-reds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}