LOUISVILLE — Daniel Wright wasn’t one of the good young arms everyone was talking about at spring training for the Reds. Wright, in fact, wasn’t even invited to big league camp. Yet, he will make his big league debut for the Reds Tuesday in Los Angeles.
“He wasn’t one of the five names in the Double-A,” Louisville pitching coach Ted Power said. “Down there in Double-A, he had a couple of spot starts. He put up great numbers. He had a 0.45 ERA and he had two starts.
"The first start was a good start. I can’t remember how many pitches he threw. We stretched him out a little bit. But his next start, he threw 103 pitches in nine innings and gave up no runs.”
With the way things have gone with Reds pitching, why not give a him a shot?
Wright, a 25-year-old right-hander, was the club’s 10th-round pick in the 2013 draft, out of Arkansas State. He put up decent numbers in the minors before this year. He went a combined 14-7 with a 3.54 ERA at Dayton and Bakersfield in 2014. He was 10-11 with a 4.53 ERA at Pensacola last year.
Wright’s numbers this year have been outstanding. He started the year at Pensacola, pitching mostly in relief. He was 2-0 with a 0.45 ERA over 20 innings, allowing 10 hits, four walks and striking out 22. He made two start for Louisville. In the second one, he threw a complete-game, three-hit shutout. He walked none and struck out eight.
Wright has the stuff as well well at the numbers, Power said.
“He’s a strike thrower,” he said of Wright. “He’s throws 91, 92, but he’s a got a sinker. He’s got the four-seam, the two-seam. He works both sides of the plate. He’ll throw his secondary pitches. He’s got a curveball, slider and change. He throws them anytime, especially the change-up."
The coach compared Wright to Wandy Peralta, another Louisville player Power painted as "confident" for alternating pitches to get the strike.
“Wright is the same way," he said. "It’s not just, 'Keep throwing fastballs because that’s what I’m going to throw strikes with.' No, he can throw a strike with all four pitches."
