Chase Burns hoping he can follow in Rhett Lowder's footsteps — again

New York Times

20-03-2025

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — For just about every player in professional baseball, their first big-league spring training is different from anything they've experienced in their life.
Most everyone who gets to this point has always been the best of the best on just about any field they've been. As they come up even through high school, college or the minor leagues, most of the steps are easy. In the big leagues, though, there are so many unwritten rules, new parks, new routines, new schedules.
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That's why Chase Burns was so grateful for his roommate, Rhett Lowder. Burns was in big-league camp before he'd ever been in a minor-league camp. The No. 2 pick in July's draft, Burns earned an invite to big-league camp in Arizona this spring, just as Lowder had a year before.
On the day of the Cincinnati Reds' Cactus League opener last month, Lowder had a simple message for Burns.
'He said, 'Follow me, and I'll show you what to do,'' Burns said.
That included everything from which color pants to wear to when to eat before the game, what bus to take to Goodyear Ball Park, and even when it's OK to leave the game if you're not playing.
If Burns can follow in Lowder's footsteps the rest of this year, the Reds will be thrilled.
Like Burns, Lowder pitched at Wake Forest before the Reds used their first pick in the draft on him, with Burns going second and Lowder seventh in their drafts.
It took just 419 days for Lowder to be selected by the Reds to the day he took the mound at Great American Ball Park to face the Milwaukee Brewers in his big-league debut in August.
Lowder not only made it up to the big leagues in his first season, but he also was fantastic once he got there, going 2-2 with a 1.17 ERA in six starts, even starting the season's final game. For Lowder, it was about as good of a position as he could've imagined. But it's also a unique situation, he said, and he's tried to stress that to his friend.
'Even last year, a lot of it is out of your hands,' Lowder said. 'More than likely, no matter how I was doing at the back end of last season, if we don't have all those injuries, maybe I don't make it up there. The situation when you get called up is unique for everybody.'
What isn't unique to Burns is the fact that after he got drafted, the Reds didn't have him pitch again, despite there being more than two months of baseball on the calendar.
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For Lowder, it was simply a workload thing. In his junior year at Wake Forest, the Demon Deacons went to the College World Series and he threw a total of 120 1/3 innings, ending with a memorable performance against LSU and Paul Skenes.
For Burns, his season ended earlier than Lowder's when the Demon Deacons failed to advance past the regional round of the NCAA baseball tournament. Still, in his first year at Wake Forest, Burns threw 100 innings and had been done with his season for more than a month by the time he was drafted.
let's gooooo @ChaseBurns20 https://t.co/1H2gu5YnGa
— Rhett Lowder (@lowderrhett) July 15, 2024
Although the Reds' player development staff toyed with the idea of his getting in some games, he instead stayed in Arizona at the team's complex where he threw a pair of innings in instructional league before being shut down, a decision that frustrated him at the time.
'When they told me they were shutting me down, it was really hard,' Burns recalled. 'You get that opportunity to put on a Reds jersey and stuff like that, you just want to get out there. But they put a lot of money into you and time and effort, so they want to take their time. I get it.'
There's understanding why a decision is made, but there's also dealing with the consequences of other people's decisions. Though Burns understood the Reds' choice, the competitor in him wanted to pitch and prove himself as a pro.
'I do think at the end of the year when Lowder made his big-league debut, talking to guys around the complex it almost clicked for Burns that, 'Hey, that could be me. Everything they've told me, everything they told Lowder, it might be true,'' said Jeremy Farrell, the Reds' director of player development.
It's easy for Lowder to see the road to The Show now, even if he didn't exactly see it that closely on the horizon when he was going through it.
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'Being out here (in Arizona) in the summer, it's hard even without the baseball aspect,' Lowder said. 'I think it was good in the long run in terms of easing me into the pro ball.'
Lowder has the benefit of hindsight and six big-league starts under his belt to comfort him. For Burns, it's still his reality.
'I still have to tell him a lot, 'just chill out man,'' Lowder said. 'If you have any questions, more than likely what they're doing to you, they did to me. So I know what they're thinking or why they're doing what they're doing. I've had those conversations that maybe he doesn't want to have. I've probably already had them.'
Lowder also answered questions for the Reds' player development staff as he worked his way to the big leagues. After dominating at High-A Dayton, Lowder moved up to Double-A Chattanooga, where he made 16 starts and was 4-4 with a 4.31 ERA. With the Lookouts, Lowder gave up four times as many runs in his first four starts at that level as he did in all six of his big-league starts.
'I had some rough parts last year, too. I told him, it's a long year,' Lowder said. 'As long as you just commit to learning yourself, you can have a couple of bad weeks and then figure it out and then put a couple of good weeks together. It only takes one or two good months and then you're knocking on the door.'
As Lowder did a year ago, Burns got a chance to pitch in a Cactus League game, a scoreless inning against the Texas Rangers earlier this month. In that inning, he walked one and struck out three.
Burns' stuff has already started earning rave reviews, not just his triple-digit fastball, but also his slider, which could be an even better pitch.
But as much as anything, it's the way Burns has followed Lowder's example of taking his time in camp in stride, listening to everyone around him and going out and competing like a big leaguer, not a college player.
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'That was one of the things I recognized with Rhett early on, especially with the first couple of times catching him up there, just his plan, what he wanted to do with guys,' Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson said. 'He's a very polished college guy who knew what he was doing. Same thing with Burns. I caught him once in a bullpen. Just talking to him, he knows what he wants to do. I'm excited for him.'