Cincinnati Reds Select Wake Forest Pitcher Rhett Lowder No. 7 Overall in MLB Draft
The Cincinnati Reds selected Wake Forest pitcher Rhett Lowder with the No. 7 pick in the MLB Draft on Sunday night.
He just helped Wake Forest earn the No. 1 ranking in the country as the Deacons advanced to the College World Series.
Lowder will join young pitchers Andrew Abbott and Brandon Williamson as exciting pitchers in the Reds system. The latter two are already up at the big league level and have helped the Reds to a first-place spot in the National League Central thus far.
He was ranked the No. 6 draft prospect by MLB.com and here is a portion of his draft profile:
After cracking Wake Forest's weekend rotation as a freshman but posting a 6.12 ERA, Lowder nearly halved his ERA to 3.08 last year, ranked second in NCAA Division I with 11 victories, became the first Demon Deacon ever named Atlantic Coast Conference pitcher of the year and pitched for the U.S. Collegiate National Team. This spring, he joined Danny Hultzen as the only players ever to repeat as ACC pitcher of the year and led NCAA D-I with 15 wins and ranked fourth in ERA (1.87) and strikeouts (143, a school record) while pitching Wake to its first College World Series since 1955. He'll be the Demon Deacons' third pitcher taken in the first round in the last four Drafts, and he's a significantly better prospect than predecessors Jared Shuster (2020) and Ryan Cusick (2021).
Lowder owns one of the best changeups in college baseball, a plus mid-80s offering with significant fade that he'll use against both left-handers and right-handers. He sets it up with a 92-95 mph fastball that maxes out at 97 and features more sink than ride, so it elicits more ground balls than empty swings
Cincinnati's selection of Lowder follows Paul Skenes (No. 1, Pirates), Dylan Crews (No. 2, Nationals), Max Clark (No. 3, Tigers), Wyatt Langford (No. 4, Rangers), Walker Jenkins (No. 5, Twins) and Jacob Wilson (No. 6, A's).
The Reds are currently 50-41 and lead the NL Central by one game over the Milwaukee Brewers.
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