Allen suffered a left thumb UCL sprain in the third game of the season. He was a first-round pick in 2021, is rated as high as No. 12 on Reds’ prospect lists and was key to the Dragons’ strong 16-6 finish last season.
“He’s a really good player,” LaHair said. “Looking forward to having him back. It’s exciting.”
The Dragons will look for a lift on Thursday after Wednesday night’s 4-2 loss to Great Lakes, their third straight setback.
Starting pitcher Chase Petty has been on a four-inning limit in his nine starts since joining the team after an injury. He entered with a 1.13 ERA and had allowed more than one run only once. The Loons (7-4 second half) got a break on an infield hit and got to Petty for a season-high five hits. He left trailing 2-1 in the fourth with one out after 65 pitches for his shortest outing.
John Murphy got the final two outs. Carson Rudd, who has struggled in some recent outings, pitched three scoreless innings to allow the Dragons to tie the score 2-2 in the seventh on Jack Rogers’ single. In the eighth, Rudd allowed a two-run homer to Chris Newell on a 3-2 pitch.
“I thought that Petty pitch pitched all right,” LaHair said. “I thought thought Rudd pitched well until that last pitch, but outside of that, he threw the ball well, so some good signs there. Defensively we made some plays. We just didn’t score enough runs.”
The Dragons had a good start when Austin Hendrick hit his sixth home run for a 1-0 lead in the first inning. But the Dragons, starved for a hot hitter or two, had only three more hits.
“As far as tonight is concerned, obviously there’s more in there, but it just didn’t happen for us tonight,” LaHair said. “So now we’ve got to have a short-term memory.”
The Dragons rank eighth in the 12-team league in batting average at .229 and seventh in on-base percentage at .318. They hit .235 in last week’s 3-3 split at West Michigan, but are .177 through two games with the Loons with 22 strikeouts. The Dragons’ 842 strikeouts entering Wednesday’s game are the most in the league by 122 over the next worse team, which happens to be the first-half champion Loons.
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