Even though he has started the season on the injured list, Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Nick Lodolo knows what he’s experiencing right now could be a lot worse.
He suffered a blister in his final start of spring training, and that blister prevented Lodolo from starting the season on the active roster. Still, he avoided a worst case scenario.
“I caught it as soon as I possibly could,” Lodolo said. “You throw one pitch, and there it is. I’d be in a terrible spot now had I kept going.”
Instead, he’s now ramping up toward a return. Lodolo threw a successful bullpen session on Sunday. He’s scheduled to throw another this week, and then he could make a rehab start on Thursday. After that, Terry Francona said that Lodolo could return to the rotation and slot in during the team’s series in Miami next week.
While Lodolo is out, he’s confident in a Reds’ rotation that has a lot of talent despite Lodolo and Hunter Greene (elbow) being on the injured list.
{span style=”text-decoration: underline”}“{/span}Obviously, you want us to be in it,” Lodolo said. “We want to be in it to. We have a solid group top to bottom. Whatever guy we have going out there, we have a chance to win the game. That’s a good feeling. I’ve said all along that it’s going to take everybody. In the first week of the season, it’s taking everybody.”
Lodolo’s blister history has been a factor in the story of his career so far. He dealt with it in 2021 as a prospect. In 2024, he missed time because of it, adjusted his slider grip and then suffered a season-ending finger injury. He also spent time on the injured list with a blister in 2025.
His slider grip is a big part of what makes it special, but the grip has aggravated the skin on his finger on particularly hot days.
“I sweat a lot in my hands,” Lodolo said a few weeks ago. “They’re sweaty. I use the rosin bag a ton to try to combat that. But there are other guys who definitely sweat as much as I do. It’s just the way I hold (the pitch). You get humid days and moisture in your hand and combine that with the leather. I put a lot of pressure on my finger throwing the ball. Ripping it, over time, (the blister) builds up.”
Changing his slider grip again would take away from the pitch that’s his biggest strength.
“That (slider) is what makes me really good,” Lodolo said. “I don’t want to compromise that. I obviously want to make sure I’m on the field. But at the same time, I want to make sure I’m at my best.”
He has experimented with many different strategies to strengthen the skin on that finger, including using a file. He’ll continue to work on approaches that can help him put the blister issue fully behind him.
Starting pitcher Brady Singer also suffered a blister during the final week of spring training due to the heat in Arizona. Singer doesn’t have a history with blisters, and he was able to make his scheduled start to open the season last Saturday. But he struggled with his command and only threw four innings.
“I was really pleased that he was pitching,” Francona said. “They were trimming that (finger) after the first inning and all of that stuff. He hadn’t been able to practice his four-seamer a lot. The fact that he got out to 70-something pitches is a really good sign. He’s fine. The stuff is fine.”