Guillon puts it all together for Dragons

Dayton southpaw Ismael Guillon demonstrated his considerable upside on Wednesday night without exhibiting any hint of the downside most often associated with him.

The Reds' No. 10 prospect -- who led the Midwest League in both walks and strikeouts a year ago -- had his way with Class A South Bend, yielding two hits over seven scoreless innings. His impressive line included 11 strikeouts and not a single free pass.

"I'm not surprised at all," Dragons pitching coach Tony Fossas said after his team dropped a 1-0 decision to the Silver Hawks. "He's a kid who has Major League talent."

Guillon is off to a great start in his third tour of the Midwest League. In four starts, he's 1-0 with a 1.16 ERA and 25 strikeouts against eight walks. He has not surrendered a home run and opponents are batting .116 against him.

It's possible that no one, not even Guillon himself, is as happy about his early success as Fossas, who's been pleased with the consistency the left-hander has brought to his delivery.

"I've always been a Guillon fan -- actually, a big fan -- because I've known him a while," said Fossas, a southpaw who had a 12-year career in the Majors. "I never have met a pitcher with the size of a heart that he has. He has gone through a lot."

After signing with Cincinnati as a non-drafted free agent in 2008, Guillon missed all of 2009 following Tommy John surgery. Last year, in his first full season at Class A, the Venezuela native recorded 134 strikeouts (9.9 per nine innings) and 95 walks (7.0 per nine innings).

"He's not out there trying to throw balls, it just happens," Fossas said. "Today is an example of things to come in his career, hopefully."

The 11 strikeouts matched a career high for Guillon, who also fanned that many on Aug. 25, 2010, in the Rookie-level Arizona League. The last time he pitched without issuing a walk was July 27, 2012, when he was a member of Rookie-level Billings.

With continued success, Fossas cannot foresee a reason why the Reds would not want to promote Guillon, emphasizing that the 22-year-old is a lefty who's already on the team's 40-man roster.

"Left-handers like myself," Fossas said, "sometimes it takes us a little bit longer to figure things out, but when we do, we can be special."

Against South Bend, Guillon allowed a leadoff single to Daniel Palka in the second inning and a one-out double to Breland Almadova in the sixth but nothing else. He did not have the benefit of run support, as Silver Hawks counterpart Adam Miller also spun seven shutout frames.

Guillon also pushed his total to 186 strikeouts over parts of three seasons with Dayton, eclipsing Daniel Corcino's team record.

"Today, he had one of those outings that, if anybody was here watching him, they would have went, 'Wow,'" Fossas said, "because he had all three pitches going. He pitched ahead of the count and he was able to throw his putaway pitch, which was the breaking ball today.

"I was just so happy for him because you saw some results."

Layne Somsen came on in the eighth and worked around a two-out walk before South Bend pushed across the winning run in the ninth. Andrew Velazquez led off with a double, took third on a groundout and scored on a two-out single by Joe Munoz.