Pitching these days is at an all-time premium in baseball. The arms race is greater than anything staged by the USA-USSR regimes in the 1950s and 60s.

The Cincinnati Reds, playing home games in hitter-friendly Great American Ballpark, have been trying to accumulate as many good arms as possible. With right-handers Hunter Greene, 24, Graham Ashcraft, 26, and lefty Andrew Abbott, 25, already in the rotation, they are off to a good start.

Lefty Nick Lodolo, 26, is at Triple-A Louisville trying to recapture the form that made him an exciting rookie in 2022. He missed most of 2023 with a left leg injury and was still experiencing discomfort in spring training. Also at Louisville is Carson Spiers, 26, who could help in the rotation or long relief.

Riding to the Reds’ rescue could be three younger right-handers listed as their No. 2, No. 3 and No. 5 prospects by MLB Pipeline. That would be Rhett Lowder and Connor Phillips, both 22, and 21-year-old Chase Petty.

A Lofty Draft Choice

Lowder had a magical 2023. He went 15-0 with a 1.87 earned run average at Wake Forest. He struck out 143 while giving up only 24 walks and 90 hits in 120 1/3 innings, then got a $5.7 million from the Reds as the seventh overall pick.

Even better in the eyes of the Reds’ scouting department was how he registered other outs with a sinking fastball in the mid-90s (mph) and elite changeup that got plenty of ground balls. His third-best offering, a mid-80s slider, has more sink than sweep, too. If you are going to work half your games in Cincinnati’s launching pad on the banks of the Ohio River, you better keep batters from hitting balls in the air.

Lowder figures he can keep them from making louder contact by pitching to spots. He’s regarded as one of the best young pitchers to understand how to use an entire repertoire and not just try to blow away hitters by firing arm-stressful fastball after fastball in or out of the strike zone.

“I can have success in many different ways,” Lowder told reporters after working two scoreless innings in a Spring Breakout game against Texas Rangers prospects on March 14. “Something I take pride in is filling every quadrant of the zone with multiple pitches. It’s not easy to do. But when it’s working, it’s pretty good.”

Acquired From Seattle

Phillips was one of four prospects sent to Cincinnati by the Seattle Mariners for veterans Eugenio Suarez and Jesse Winker in March 2022. He got a little more than $1 million to sign with Seattle as a second-round pick in 2020. He made his big-league debut for the Reds late last season, had a good spring this year and is also at Triple-A Louisville. He gave up one run over six innings to win his season debut.

Phillips impressed Reds manager David Bell by working six scoreless innings in three relief outings this spring. Bell told Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer: “He’s continuing to really show what he showed us last year. He had the tough start in last time out last year. He has bounced back this spring and gotten right back on track. If anything, he has gotten even more confident and comfortable here. His talent is coming out.”

Phillips must cut down walks, keep pounding the strike zone with his 96-mph fastball and harness his good overhand curve in order to move up this year.

Obtained From Minnesota

Petty was acquired from Minnesota for veteran Sonny Gary one day before the Reds traded for Phillips back in 2022. The Twins had given him a $2.5 million signing bonus as the 26th choice in the first round as a New Jersey high schooler in 2021.

The Reds are looking past his 1-9 record thus far in 175 innings in the minors and focusing upon his 171 strikeouts and only 49 walks.

Now at Double-A Chattanooga, Petty has learned to get mix his mid-90s fastball with a 91-93 mph cutter that gets good sink from his lower arm slot. As with the other two, the entire process is about getting Petty to induce grounders.

The Legend Of Grover Lowdermilk

In one way, the Reds wouldn’t mind all three of their prospects pitching nine years in the majors like Grover Cleveland Lowdermilk did more than 100 years ago. There’s no way they want any of them to exhibit his almost absolute disdain for the strike zone, however.

The skinny 6-foot-4 right-hander never could command his fastball or sweeping curve. He walked an alarming 376 in only 590 1/3 big-league innings, compiling a 23-39 record for six different teams.

He kept getting sent back to the minors. In 466 games at all levels, he walked 1,446 in 2,684 innings with only 902 strikeouts with a career record of 172-150. That included a 5-5 record for the 1919 Chicago White Sox. He was not part of the infamous Black Sox scandal in the World Series. He gave up one run in one inning in Game 1.

Umpire Billy Evans, who also wrote a syndicated baseball column, compared Lowdermilk’s “stuff” to that of the great Hall of Famer Walter Johnson. The ump/scribe saw stories where Lowdermilk complained that his pitches were so good they not only fooled hitters, but caused umps to miss calling them strikes, too.

Evans wrote in 1918 about a game on July 4, 1915, where he worked the plate for a Lowdermilk start. He said he told Lowdermilk before the game, “It’s a better idea to fool the batters. This afternoon, how about you make up your mind that I simply can’t be fooled by your stuff; that you are going to confine your attention to opposing batters.”

Lowdermilk allowed one hit (Evans called it a misjudged flyball) over nine innings in a 2-0 win for the Cleveland Indians over the St. Louis Browns.