The Reds will get back a franchise cornerstone on the Fourth of July, as Hunter Greene will make his 2026 season debut. Greene was sidelined back in early March after an elbow injury, which required surgery to remove bone chips & loose bodies. The good news is that Greene, after his rehab assignment, pitched much like Greene pre-surgery.
The numbers
Hunter Greene pitched like an ace down in his rehab assignment, as one would expect from a pitcher of his pedigree. The 26-year-old didn’t allow a run over his three outings before returning to Cincinnati. He walked two and struck out 13 over 14.1 total innings.
Greene started his assignment in the ACL, where he struck out six over four innings on June 18. Five days later, he tossed four scoreless innings against the St. Paul Saints.
In his most recent start on June 28, Greene allowed just one hit and struck out four over 6.1 IP against the Twins’ Triple-A affiliate. He finished with 82 pitches, which gives you a good idea that Greene should be able to get 90-95 pitches from the onset.
Overall, there wasn’t a lot of swing-and-miss, as he only had a 23% Whiff% in his first Triple-A outing, followed by a 26% rate in his final Triple-A tune-up. But realistically, looking at those numbers is just nitpicking.
One last note before moving on: Greene began to use that splitter of his more liberally in the latter stages of the rehab assignment. Not really much of a shock, given how pitchers tend to build up during these types of assignments.
The velocity
Now, we get to the fun stuff.
Months removed from elbow surgery, Greene’s fastball velocity was just fine. Greene hit as hard as 100 MPH during his assignment. And what you want to see is that velocity slowly tick up as the build-up continues — and that’s exactly what happened here. Higher velocity in his second Triple-A outing, as Greene threw eight 100 MPH fastballs.
Also, the velocity held through that last tune-up, by and large. Waning in the latter innings, as expected. But over the first innings of that game on June 28, he held strong.
With that out of the way, Greene is headed back to a Major League mound, as he’ll make his first start of 2026 on July 4. And, realistically, it couldn’t come at a better time for the Reds.
Heading into play on July 3, the Reds were six games out of a playoff spot. The offense for Cincinnati has been a mixed bag, as Sal Stewart & Elly De La Cruz, plus offseason acquisitions JJ Bleday and Nathaniel Lowe, have carried the load. But on the mound, it’s been a different story.
Chase Burns has been the ace since Greene went down, as the righty’s power stuff has helped him move to the upper echelon of the MLB starter food chain. And after a tough start to 2026, Andrew Abbott has found a groove.
But aside from those two, finding consistent innings has been a problem. Brady Singer, Rhett Lowder, and Nick Lodolo all have ERA figures over 5.00. But even that doesn’t tell the whole story. Not enough swing-and-miss from either three. Singer, meanwhile, conceded 19 home runs over his first 77.1 IP, concerning given that the righty was supposed to be a tailor-made fit in Cincy.
To say that the Reds could use Greene back would be an understatement.
Check out more of our MLB coverage.