Cincinnati Reds’ Sal Romano running out of chances

Sal Romano had a rough major league debut and the Cincinnati Reds won’t keep waiting for him to get better.

The Cincinnati Reds knew that 2017 would be challenging with so many young pitchers jockeying for a spot in the rotation.  What they didn’t expect was for none of them to step forward.  Amir Garrett, Luis Castillo, Rookie Davis, Sal Romano, Lisalverto Bonilla, Asher Wojciechowski, Robert Stephenson, Cody Reed, and Jackson Stephens have all started a game for the Reds and spent some time in the minors this season.

Castillo and Stephens haven’t done anything at the big league level to say they don’t deserve longer looks, but the same cannot be said for the rest of the list.  Davis, Reed, and Stephenson can’t find the strike zone consistently.  Bonilla, Garrett, and Wojciechowski always have a big inning at some point in every start.  At least Castillo is trying to lead by example.

That leaves the big hoss of the group, Romano.  At 6’5″, 270, he is the biggest all around pitcher on the staff this season.  He’s also only 23, so some of that size can be trimmed down or re-purposed to muscle mass in future years.

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His first time out, he surrendered four walks, but worked around them.  What did him in was the two home runs that he allowed.  After only lasting three innings and throwing more balls than strikes, Romano was back in the minors.

Sal Romano has to prove to the Cincinnati Reds that he can throw more innings instead of more pitches in fewer innings.

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Romano has pitched between 78 and 98 pitches every time out.  He has averaged 87 pitches per start so far.  Those numbers are a little low, but completely respectable.

However, what isn’t respectable is his 4 1/3 innings average per start.  The Reds just need to get five innings per start to be competitive.  For whatever reason that has been a challenge so far this year.

Romano has shown enough to stay in the rotation for now.

With Feldman on the DL and Adleman struggling, the Reds will give Romano more leeway.  That plus he and Wojcichowski have both looked better than former top prospect Robert Stephenson.

With the trade deadline just passed the Reds did not acquire any young pitchers to start.  Their only option would be to call someone up who didn’t produce already this season.  At least Romano has something of an upside.

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Romano is young.  The question is whether he would develop better in Cincinnati or Louisville.  The Reds can make that decision and hopefully someday Romano will be ready to pitch late in games.