The Cincinnati Reds announced on Saturday afternoon that they had released relief pitcher Hunter Strickland. He had an ERA of 10.00 this spring with the club.
Cincinnati signed Hunter Strickland prior to the 2022 season, but got out to a rough start. He posted an ERA of 9.82 in April, but started moving in the right direction after that. From May 1st through the end of the year his ERA was a solid 4.25 in 55.0 innings where he had 22 walks and 55 strikeouts. He would end the year with a 4.91 ERA overall. Still, after the season he became a free agent. There were no takers on giving him a big league deal, but he re-signed with the Reds on a minor league deal in February as spring training was getting started and got an invite to big league camp.
After a shutout inning in his first appearance he gave up two runs in each of the next two games, then one run in the two that followed. Three perfect outings followed that, but last night he pitched against Arizona and allowed four runs. That took his ERA on the spring from 6.75 up to 10.00. That must have been enough to push the Reds to the decision that he wasn’t going to make the team.
With the release of Strickland, the Cincinnati Reds are down to 34 players that are “active” in camp. That isn’t really true, though, because Tejay Antone, Justin Dunn, Tony Santillan, Lucas Sims, Luke Weaver, and Nick Senzel are all “active”, but none are expected to begin the season on the active roster. Dunn and Antone are expected to miss real amounts of time, with Dunn potentially not returning until well into the second half this season. Senzel is back in games in the spring, but he’s just getting started. Santillan and Weaver are all expected to pitch in the spring game tonight against the White Sox. Sims is expected to throw a side session today. Without setbacks, all of those guys should be ready in April and aren’t expected to miss much time once the season begins.
