C. Trent Rosecrans

crosecrans@enquirer.com

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — When Clark Kent takes off his glasses, he becomes Superman. When Reds left-hander Cody Reed puts his on, he becomes something of a superhero himself.

“It’s not fair,” muttered one Reds minor leaguer (who will remain unnamed) after his first live batting practice against Reed earlier this spring. “6-foot-5, lefty, throwing gas and with those glasses, you don’t know if he knows where it’s going.”

There was a sense of wonder — and while fear may not quite be the word to use, perhaps intimidation may be.

On the mound, Reed is intimidating. He’s big — 6-5, 225 pounds — and he does have a certain look with his black goggles. In short, he makes quite the first impression.

That’s nothing new for Reed, who came to the Reds from Kansas City along with fellow left-handers John Lamb and Brandon Finnegan in the trade that sent Johnny Cueto to the Royals.

Reds catcher Kyle Skipworth, who was with Double-A Pensacola last year when Reed reported to the Blue Wahoos, remembers Reed’s Reds debut last July 31 in Chattanooga.

“It was my first time catching him and everyone is in a feeling-out process,” Skipworth remembered. “He comes over and you see a big ol’ donkey warming up in the pen throwing cheddar balls. You see he has life. He’s breezing through the game and we’re punching out a lot of guys with back-foot sliders and I’m like, this guy is nasty.”

Reed allowed a run in his first inning but then cruised through the Lookouts' lineup until Max Kepler hit a one-out triple in the sixth inning of what was still a 1-0 game with the fourth and fifth hitters in the lineup coming up.

“I went out to say ‘we’ve got first base open, we can be tough, pitch around these guys, get a double play… whatever,” Skipworth recalls.

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And what happened next showed him who Reed was.

“I looked at him, I said, ‘Skip, you don’t know me very well, I’m new to you, I’m new to everyone, I’m going to strike these next two guys out and we’re going to go back to the dugout.’” Reed recalls. “He said, ‘OK.’”

Reed proceeded to strike out Kennys Vargas and then get Adam Walker to line out to third, ending the inning.

“That fires you up,” Skipworth said. “It’s so refreshing when you get a guy that’s nose-to-the-grindstone, says it’s my game. You love that as a competitor.”

After the Blue Wahoos took the lead the next half-inning, Reed nailed down the seventh, retiring the Lookouts in order, including a strikeout of his final batter of the night. That was the first of six wins in his eight starts with the Blue Wahoos.

That night he was wearing the same black plastic frames he’ll wear to the mound for Monday night’s Cactus League game against the Padres on MLB Network. They’re the same frames his mother bought him when he was a 5-foot-9 high school freshman who couldn’t see the catcher’s signals. Reed thought they looked ridiculous and refused to wear them, saving himself from the teasing of his teammates. His mother had other ideas.

“He was going to wear them, because if I was going to take him to the doctor and go through all that trouble, he’s by-golly going to wear them,” Kris Reed-Jones said Sunday as she drove from Arizona back to the family’s home in Mississippi.

Reed wore them his first game of his sophomore season and dominated. Since then, he’s had to have them.

“I’m really superstitious, so I had one good game with them, I’ve obviously had bad games with them, but just having that one game of success, you feel like you have to wear them all the time,” Reed said.

His mother said he gets another pair almost every year, but he still wears the original ones. Every so often he’ll forget them and she’ll have to run to the post office and mail them to him, so he can wear them when it’s time to pitch — and only the original pair will do.

He doesn’t wear them all the time, just on the mound. He doesn’t wear his glasses around the clubhouse or even during some drills, instead, he goes sans specs, except for when he’s driving, for obvious reasons.

“I only put them on right before I start throwing. I stretch and stuff without them, but right when I start playing catch, I put them on,” Reed noted.

The transition is stark. In the Reds' clubhouse, Reed isn't heard, he sits low in his chair, more like the 5-foot-3 eighth grader he once was before a growth spurt. But when he puts on his glasses and heads to the mound, he demands attention.

“My intensity level is high, I’m focused in my bullpens, that’s my job for the day, to work on my craft, then I definitely relax,” Reed said. “When it comes to games, I’m totally different.”

That competitiveness has been on display this spring, as Reed’s allowed just one earned run in 10 spring training innings (two in a “B” game) on five hits with 10 strikeouts and no walks.

“We have a bunch of guys in camp that throw hard, the difference with Cody is he’s throwing hard and he’s throwing quality strikes and he’s getting good hitters out,” Reds manager Bryan Price said. “That’s what separates him. We’ve talked about some of the guys we’ve sent out of camp already. We’ve talked plenty about their stuff. They just haven’t harnessed it very well to this point, or to the point where they could compete at this level. He has shown nothing but the ability to challenge hitters in the strike zone with two quality pitches and the makings of a third with a changeup.”

Price had been anxious to see Reed in person, having read the scouting reports and talking with the Reds' front office about the 22-year-old lefty before seeing him. Price met Reed at Redsfest, on the caravan and then again at the team’s pitching summit in Goodyear in January. Price knew the resume: Reed was taken in the second round of the 2013 draft out of Northwest Mississippi Community College. He threw 84 innings in low-Class A ball in 2014 before starting 2015 in high-Class A and moving to Double-A before the trade.

“I couldn’t have assumed he would be this polished,” Price said.

Skipworth, who is entering his ninth pro season, has been impressed by Reed’s polish and competitive nature, if not his sense of style.

“His personal choice in glasses style,” Skipworth noted, “I think can be upgraded, possibly.”

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