PEORIA, Ariz. – When the Reds tabbed Rhett Lowder for the 2025 Arizona Fall League, they were gifting him with the thing that eluded him most during the season: time to showcase his stuff.
It’s hard to imagine his first start for the Peoria Javelinas going much better.
Lowder fired 21 of his 23 pitches for strikes Friday, including each of his first 13. The right-hander recorded a pair of strikeouts in his first frame at the Peoria Sports Complex as part of a 15-1 win Javelinas win, including a dominant three-pitch at-bat against Charlie Condon, the No. 3 pick in the 2024 Draft (Rockies) and MLB’s No. 61 overall prospect.
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“I kind of just wanted to come in and fill it up and just kind of just get back out there and get my feet under me,” Lowder said. “I didn't try to look too much into any reports or anything.
He added a third strikeout in the second, an overturned called third strike via the ABS challenge system and fellow Reds prospect Alfredo Duno (CIN No. 2/MLB No. 48), who served as his batterymate. Despite their respective statuses as highly valued members of the club’s future, the two had never worked together before.
“He was awesome,” Lowder said of Duno. “He was very responsive to everything I had to say and it seemed like he took great mental notes of anything that I like to do, and then he gave some feedback. Just a really big target too, which is awesome.”
The Reds’ No. 5 prospect dialed his heater up as high as 95.7 mph, and the velo on his slider, sinker and four-seamer were all up more than 1 mph from the regular season. The club’s first-round pick in the 2023 Draft logged six whiffs and four called strikes against his eight batters faced.
Lowder’s pitch breakdown was as follows:
vs. RHB: 9 sliders, 6 sinkers
vs. LHB: 3 four-seam fastballs, 2 sinkers, 2 changeups, 1 slider
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“I felt good,” Lowder said. “Everything was smooth, just excited to be back in the game and just playing against some big competition.”
MLB’s No. 80 prospect worked just 9 1/3 frames during the regular season after dealing with a right forearm strain during the early portion of the year before sustaining a left oblique strain during a rehab start on May 22. He made it back to the hill for one appearance with Triple-A Louisville on Sept. 13 but has since continued to rehab at the club’s complex in Goodyear.
From the perspective of contributing to a big league club that made its first postseason appearance since 2020, this past year was a wash for Lowder. But the Reds have long viewed Lowder, still just 23 years old, as having top-of-the-rotation potential in the future. It’s why he made his Major League debut just over 13 months after being drafted and pitched in crucial games (1.17 ERA in six starts) during the club’s ‘24 playoff push.
One of college baseball’s most dominant starting pitchers during his tenure with Wake Forest (and their famed pitching lab), Lowder – who threw 120+ innings in back-to-back years in 2023 and ‘24 – had to deal with the adrenaline of in-game action being taken away from him. In an age of immense analytical data that assists clubs and their pitchers in myriad ways, sometimes hitting reset can be a long-term benefit, too.
“It's been all hands on deck so far this year just dealing with the long-term oblique [injury], so I mean, I give a lot of credit to our [director of rehab and physical therapy] Eric Gonzalez,” Lowder said. “He's been huge for me, just teaching me a lot about my body and trying to take care of myself and how to learn because at the end of the day, I'm still young and I had a lot to learn. So that's been a good part.”
Lowder expects to continue to rehab in Goodyear over the next month as he continues to build his pitch count and workload with all eyes on a clean bill of health in 2026 and beyond.