Organizational Injury Report - Roster Expansion

Joey Votto is close to a return, and now that rosters have expanded no accompanying roster moves will be necessary. Personally, I would expect to see Votto activated when the Reds return to Cincinnati on September 3 to start a home series against the Phillies (this is also Fay's guess). As of right now, Joey has been out 7 weeks, and amazingly, the Reds have not felt his absence all that acutely, at least in regards to the W-L column. It was very fortunate that Votto's injury coincided with an extremely soft stretch of the Reds schedule. We've played three against the Cardinals and three against the Pirates, and have otherwise played 39 games against teams with a combined winning percentage of .436. The majority of those have been against the Astros and Cubs, who have a combined .346 WP. Wow.

Bill Bray has not been activated from the 15-day DL, where he has been since July 31. The thing is, I don't think it's because he isn't recovered enough to pitch, it's because he's been bad and there was no reason to activate him before rosters expanded. He's pitched 5.1 innings in Louisville, and has posted a walk rate of 8.44 per 9. So he will continue his rehab until the Reds are confident in his health, as he's already suffered setbacks from injuries twice this year.

On the minor league front, SP Sean Gallagher was placed on the 7-day DL for the AAA Louisville Bats on August 29. The former Cubs prospect was having an underwhelming season, though he did manage a winning record for a downright terrible team.

As Chester pointed out in the comments of the last injury update, Kyle Lotzkar appears to be done for the season due to a shoulder injury. He has not been placed on the DL, but he has not pitched since August 17. He did manage to put up his healthiest season to date, as he beat his old IP high-water mark by 55 innings this year. Still, 112 IP is not a huge number, and I would've hoped he'd have been able to build up a higher total by this point in his development. I have been a big fan of Lotzkar's since about 2010 or so, when he managed to make a big shift as far as getting groundballs versus flyballs from opposing hitters, while maintaining big strikeout numbers and also improving his walks. Lotzkar is dynamite when he pitches (or at least until he got to Pensacola this year), but it's looking more and more like he just has that chronic injury gene. It makes me sad, but I guess this is a good example of why some people are so adamant about the TINSTAAPP credo. Go prove them wrong next year, Kyle!