ATLANTA -- After a couple of scratchy outings to begin the year, the 2023 version of Hunter Greene looked a lot like the dominant late-2022 version for the first time this season on Wednesday night.

Greene fanned 10 Braves without a walk in six innings, and though he permitted three runs in a 5-4 loss to the Braves, the outing was easily his best of the young season. It was the longest of his three starts in ‘23, the first with no walks allowed, and just generally the sharpest he’s been.

“It was great,” Greene said. “I’ve been working really hard on the days in between, and I feel like it came through today. So I’m very happy.”

It was the third double-digit strikeout game of Greene’s career and the second such performance with no walks. He permitted seven hits, but only one after the third inning, and repeatedly escaped tricky jams.

The right-hander had his usual high-octane heat, but probably more impressive was his slider, which he used to finish off five of those 10 strikeouts. He even threw a number of quality changeups, getting three strikeouts with that pitch.

“He’s always got the chance to be dominant with the stuff that he has,” said catcher Luke Maile. “It’s finding the right mix and reading swings. We were a little more offspeed heavy today, I thought. I thought it was to his benefit.”

Greene worked around a leadoff double from Ronald Acuña Jr. in the first. He loaded the bases with no outs in the second, though the two hits both came on pitches at the very edges of the strike zone. From there, he got two strikeouts before Acuña put bat on ball on a pitch at the top of the zone and poked a slow roller up the middle that brought home two runs.

Though some of the contact in the inning was hard, none of it came on mistake pitches. That’s either frustrating or encouraging, depending on how you look at it.

“That’s also good hitting,” said manager David Bell. “I don’t want to take anything away from those kind of hits because they’re doing their job too against really good pitches. It could’ve gone even better for Hunter if he would’ve caught a break there. He was making the pitches, they made the swings.”

Greene permitted two more hits to open the third, but after that he locked down. Even with the three high-intensity innings, he got through six frames on 101 pitches. That’s a tribute to his never letting any individual inning get out of hand.

“It sucks to start an inning like that,” he said. “You always want to get the first guy out. But I think getting out of situations like that is what you live for, what you work for. It’s easy to go out there and the first three guys come up and you sit them down. But to be able to deal with some challenges early with hitters, and be able to put them away in tough situations, is just a testament to the hard work and character of any pitcher.”

Although it wasn’t perfect, it all adds up to a step in the right direction. But it’s safe to say that everyone in the Reds' clubhouse expects there’s more to come.

“I felt great about his sequencing tonight, his commitment to each pitch,” said Maile. “I think it’s a step forward for him, but there’s so much more there and I think we’re going to see it moving forward.”