ST. LOUIS \u2014 For most of the season, Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Brady Singer just hasn\u2019t looked like himself. <\/p>\n
He suffered a blister at the end of spring training that initially impacted his ability to throw two of his secondary pitches. He took a comebacker off the foot in the middle of May. His velocity has been down. Entering Friday, counting his first 11 starts of the season, he was in the middle of an 11-start stretch where he had the most home runs allowed and the fewest strikeouts of any stretch in his career. <\/p>\n
On Friday, in a 10-3 loss to the Cardinals, Singer allowed four runs (one earned) and needed 89 pitches to cover four-plus innings. He walked three batters and ended the night with a 5.89 ERA through 12 starts this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of ups and downs and stuff like that,\u201d Singer said. \u201cI\u2019m getting kicked in the teeth right now, obviously. I\u2019ll keep trying to figure out different ways to pitch your way out of it. It\u2019s going to get better at some point. Going through a rough patch, I\u2019m obviously not happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In late May, the Reds skipped one of Singer\u2019s turns through the rotation to allow him to work on some adjustments and to also give him a bit of a chance to reset. He returned on May 30, pitching on 12 days rest, and allowed three runs in five innings. The Reds\u2019 defense \u2014 narrowly missed plays at second base with Spencer Steer making a rare start there, a play at first base where the umps made the wrong call on a challenge be the Reds \u2014 hurt Singer, especially in a long first inning. But on the whole, it was another game where he couldn\u2019t give the Reds length.<\/p>\n
He ended April with a three-start stretch where Singer pitched into the sixth inning. But following that, Singer\u2019s starts have gone 3 \u2153 innings, 6 innings, 3 \u2154 innings, 4 innings, 5 innings and 4 innings. He doesn\u2019t have a win since April 25. <\/p>\n
In an interview last week, Singer broke down more at length where he\u2019s at on the mound. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou go through a lot during the season and stuff like that,\u201d Singer said last week. \u201cThere are a lot of ups and downs. I\u2019m not doing great as of late. I\u2019ll keep pushing. You can\u2019t back down. You can\u2019t shut it off.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was locking in on a few specific things. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to be as free as I can throwing the ball,\u201d Singer said. \u201cNot trying to do too much with it. Just get on the mound, be athletic and focus on the little things I can do to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
His 12-day break between starts allowed him to throw a more aggressive bullpen where he could really work on the shapes of his pitches. He carried that into his next start, and his sinker and slider have been moving more like he wants them to, according to the metrics. <\/p>\n
Still, his overall velocity is down. It\u2019s been ticking up a bit over the last week, but it\u2019s not what it was in 2025. His average sinker velocity was up to a 91.5 average on Friday (up from his season average of 91.1), but that pitch averaged 92.2 mph last year and hit 95 mph. <\/p>\n
\u201cVelocity going up would help a lot,\u201d Singer said. \u201cIt\u2019s something we\u2019re working on. It\u2019s hard to gain velocity in the middle of the year. We\u2019re doing things that can help that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The silver lining for Singer on Friday was that his slider was moving better than it had all season. Some of his behind the scenes work showed up as he got five whiffs on 11 swings against his slider and struck out six batters. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a positive that he can carry over into his next start. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe stuff was decent,\u201d Singer said on Friday night. \u201cIt\u2019s getting a little better these last two outings. It\u2019s obviously not the results that I\u2019ve wanted, but I\u2019m feeling more confident with the stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
But on a night where the Reds made too many mistakes defensively, Singer had to be perfect. He ended up working a high pitch count and walking three batters in four innings. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel like his stuff was ticking up,\u201d Terry Francona said. \u201cSometimes, if you\u2019re trying to reach back for more \u2014 especially left-handers, he has left his breaking ball over the plate and paid for it. I saw him yank a few tonight where he probably tried to make sure he gets it in a spot where he doesn\u2019t get hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The home run ball has been another big issue for Singer, who has allowed nine of them over his last four starts. Alec Burleson\u2019s homer in the third inning off Singer on Friday was on a 90.9 mph sinker that Singer left too far out over the plate. <\/p>\n
In addition to the way that his slider looked on Friday, the other bright spot with Singer is his durability. The results haven\u2019t been good, but where would a taxed and thin Reds pitching staff be with one of their depth pitchers in Singer\u2019s place in the rotation? <\/p>\n
Right now, he\u2019s fighting.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t complain,\u201d Singer said. \u201cKeep working on stuff and try to get better every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WXIX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS \u2014 For most of the season, Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Brady Singer just hasn\u2019t looked like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,535,50,4259,2471,4,536],"class_list":["post-718625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-reds","tag-baseball","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cincinnatireds","tag-logo","tag-mlb","tag-reds"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116701794367266527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}