While being aggressively promoted through the Cincinnati Reds system during the 2024 season, Rhett Lowder hit a wall. His opponents, for the first time in perhaps his entire baseball career, hit the heck out of him.
The 1st round pick of the Reds in 2023, Lowder reached AA Chattanooga in mid-May after beginning the year with A+ Dayton, and his first 10 starts there were rather abysmal. He yielded an .876 OPS to his opponents while surrendering 33 ER in just 43.1 IP, and less than one year removed from leading Wake Forest into the College World Series many began to wonder what the heck he was already doing at that level.