At the end of spring training, Terry Francona and Brad Meador met with Nathaniel Lowe to inform him that he had made the team. In that conversation, the manager and the general manager expressed that Lowe was going to be used as a bench bat. The former Silver Slugger Award winner wasn’t going to play every day.
Lowe told them, “I played myself into this role. I’ll play myself back.”
Lowe, 30 years old, has a long track record of being able to make an impact against right-handed pitching. But because of his struggles against lefties in 2025 and because of his age, he wasn’t able to land a big league contract in free agency. Despite the fact that he looked like a top-four power hitter on the Reds (at least against right-handed pitching), Lowe was the last position player to make the Reds’ roster this year. He barely played during the first couple of weeks of the season.
“You don’t know if a guy can maintain their swing,” Francona said. “He has done a really good job of that.”
One month later, Lowe is hitting fifth in the lineup on a regular basis as the Reds’ DH. Eugenio Suárez’s mild oblique injury opened up more playing time. With regular at-bats, Lowe is now really starting to get into a rhythm.
He’s hitting .256 with a .938 OPS.
“I have a more full upper body move,” Lowe said. “That’s the way I see it. The ball isn’t flying exactly the way I want it to yet. That’ll come with getting in a rhythm with more at-bats.”
It’s exciting to Lowe that he’s producing even though he doesn’t feel like he’s swinging the bat great yet.
“I’m getting the ball in the air without trying to get the ball in the air,” Lowe said. “If you do something simple like that, good things are going to happen.”
Before Suárez landed on the IL, Lowe was playing about one-third of the time and found a spot in the lineup on off days for Ke’Bryan Hayes (Suárez played third base in a Reds’ lineup that was chasing offense over defense on those days).
With Suárez on the IL, Lowe cleanly fills that spot as a full-time DH. We’ll see what happens when Suárez returns. If Lowe keeps hitting at the level he is now, then Francona will have to find ways to get Lowe’s bat in the lineup more often by giving other players days off.
Ke’Bryan Hayes upbeat about his swing
Earlier this month, Hayes went 13 games without a hit. While his numbers looked terrible, he was optimistic.
“During that stretch or whatever, I was hitting a lot of balls hard,” Hayes said. “I was being unlucky. There wasn’t a whole lot that I felt like I needed to change outside of here or there not being ready (for the) first pitch or little stuff like that. I was hitting the ball well and being unlucky. I had to keep going, not think about it too much. Baseball sometimes is weird like that.”
He didn’t have any big conversation with Francona, a teammate or a coach that helped get him back on track. He trusted the big mechanical and approach changes that he made in the offseason, which are geared to allow him to elevate the ball more than he has in the past.
While he couldn’t buy a hit for a while, at least he was successfully elevating the ball during that slump.
“There was that side of it,” Hayes said. “I’m not beating the ball into the ground as much. It was bad luck. I knew I was in a better position with how I was hitting. My exit velo average was up. I wasn’t getting hits. I had to stick with what I was doing. Sooner or later, if you hit balls hard, you’ll find hits.”
Hayes, who has not been a productive offensive player since 2023, has been working on one thing recently. He felt like he wasn’t always “ready to go for the first pitch” in every single at-bat. He had to be ready to be aggressive each time up at the plate, and that approach can also buy him some pitches outside of the zone early in counts to get ahead.
Hayes has been better over the last week, recording five hits, walking twice and stringing better at-bats together.
“It seemed like he couldn’t get anything to fall,” Spencer Steer said. “It’s not easy to go through tough stretches like that. Hats off to him, how he handled it, how he’s the same every day and works his butt off.”
TJ Friedl has a new motto for this season
For TJ Friedl, the 2025 season was all about finding a way to get on base twice a day.
This year, after starting the season in a major slump, Friedl shifted toward a bigger picture focus.
“I’m ready every day no matter what. I’m ready to come off the bench and win however I can,” Friedl said. “My motto, what I go by, is ‘What can I do to help the team win?’.”
Through the first 20 games of the season, going back to last Sunday, Friedl was hitting .137 with no power production.
“It’s not the start anybody wants,” Friedl said. “The biggest thing for me has been separating each day on its own. Every day is a new day and a new opportunity to help the team win however you can. That’s how I take it. ‘What can I do to help the team win?’ Base running, defense, offensively.”
His center field defense was also not what it had been. His role was changing as Dane Myers started over Friedl vs. LHP and as Friedl played more left field than he has in years.
Friedl isn’t complaining about the change in role.
“I’m ready every day no matter what,” Friedl said. “I’m ready to come off the bench and win however I can. My motto, what I go by, is ‘What can I do to help the team win?’.”
Last Sunday, Friedl delivered the big, clutch double in the ninth inning and recorded his first extra-base hit of the year. He had a huge celebration in what he called a very “external” moment, fired up to be producing for the team.
He has looked better over the last week, recording eight hits in six games.
The big point of emphasis for him offensively as he works on his swing is being ready for the fastball without being too early. He would find himself whiffing on fastballs where he was late or hitting foul balls down the right field line against fastballs, and he’s working to correct that.
Francona said that he’s starting to see Friedl get the ball on the barrel and keep it fair more often over the last week. Friedl has benefited from a shift in mindset.
“I’m getting away from the mechanics and being sure that I’m ready for the fastball,” Friedl said. “If you’re on time and ready for the heater, you’ll be ready to hit everything else. I’m getting back into that aggressive mindset, ready to hit from pitch one and being on fastball timing.”
While Dane Myers has been leading off recently vs. LHP and taken Friedl’s spot on the field in those games, Francona has stuck with Friedl as the leadoff guy vs. RHP.
Francona believes that Friedl is going to get on base at a high clip, like Friedl has in the past.
“Guys get to their level,” Francona said. “They don’t always do it one step at a time. But they usually do it.”
It’s no coincidence that some great games from the Reds’ offense over the last week have been on days where Friedl has produced.
“The numbers aren’t there, but (Friedl) is still a good baseball player,” Steer said. “You want him up. He takes great at-bats. He’s able to breath a little easier after doing that (in Minnesota). In Tampa, he took really good at-bats all series. You don’t want to worry about guys like that. You know what they’re capable of.”
The outfield shuffle
One month into the season, and the Reds aren’t any closer to finding their third regular outfielder to play next to the Friedl/Myers platoon and Spencer Steer.
Suárez’s move to the IL opened up a roster spot for the Reds to call up JJ Bleday. While he opened the year in Triple-A, Bleday is more experienced than Rece Hinds and Will Benson.
“We feel like (Bleday) can help us,” Francona said.
Lowe beat out Bleday and Hinds for the final roster spot on Opening Day because the 26th man on the roster wasn’t going to get a ton of starts and because the Reds wanted Bleday and Hinds to play every day.
Between Bleday, Hinds and Benson, who’s going to get the bulk of the time in the outfield?
“I don’t know moving forward,” Francona said. “Some of it is who’s pitching, how guys are hitting, some balance on the bench. You try to have a good reason for whoever plays. That’s the best way I can put it.”
Bleday was a top-five pick in the 2019 MLB Draft. As recently as the 2024 season, he was one of the more exciting young outfielders in the game as he hit 20 homers and posted a well above average OPS.
Bleday had a nightmare 2025 season with the Athletics. He messed up his mechanics, wasn’t as fluid in his swing as he needed to be and played poorly during the first half of the year. Getting optioned to Triple-A allowed Bleday to reset. He finished the year strong in the big leagues between August and September.
In December, Bleday signed a one-year deal with the Reds. In Triple-A over the last month, he hit .341.
“He certainly can hit a fastball,” Francona said. “He has been a good base runner. A good defender. And he was a really good teammate. That’s saying something when you’re disappointed you’re being sent (down to Triple-A). You like to see guys handle it like that.”
The contenders for the third outfield spot also include Hinds and Benson.
Plan A for this outfield spot was Noelvi Marte, who’s now in Triple-A. Plan B was Hinds, who started seven out of his first eight games after being called up. But Hinds wasn’t playing well, and Benson has received two starts over the Reds’ most recent four games. Bleday started over Hinds and Benson on Sunday.
Hinds now has the same number of big league plate appearances this season as Marte (31), and there are a lot of similarities in their metrics.
Marte had the worst xWOBA (that captures how well you are making quality contact) among hitters with at least 25 plate appearances, and Hinds has the fourth-worst.
Hinds has the fourth-worst whiff rate in MLB, and he’s swinging at everything. He’s not chasing as much as Marte was (Marte makes a ton of contact on pitches out of the zone), but the numbers show that they each need better plans at the plate (Marte is working on that in Louisville). The most telling number is that Marte saw the fewest percentage of strikes in MLB this year, and Hinds is seeing the second-fewest percentage of strikes.
Benson has only made 12 starts all season, and he has one hit since April 7. On the bright side, he has drawn seven walks in that span of 22 plate appearances. He hasn’t played his way into much of an opportunity yet. He’s whiffing on pitches in the strike zone (the fifth-worst in-zone whiff rate in MLB), and he’s getting “under” the ball (weak pop ups and fly outs) at the third-highest rate in MLB.
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