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Quad damage: Joey Votto reportedly headed back to the DL

Ken Rosenthal said so.

By RijoSaboCaseyWKRP

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Andy Lyons

In a season that's been quick to spike the sweet with the bitter, Ken Rosenthal tweeted this pleasant bit of news after the Reds' completed their series win over the Brewers this afternoon:

Can't even bask in a win (plus Cards' loss), before it's time to start looking at Will Carroll posts and doing a bunch of laundry for the week.

It's easy to think they should've done this a week a go or more. Joey has been getting around pretty gingerly of late and had slumping a .192/.306/.288 line over his last 15 games. The Reds' seem to be in a pattern of DL-ing players multiple times for the same injury, including Devin Mesoraco earlier this season. But, of course, bodies are complex machines.

They're also in a bit of bind, roster-wise. Already down a bench player and Brayan Peña (Felicitaciones!) just went on paternity leave for a few days.

If Joey is indeed hitting the DL again, there are a few ways they could go with it internally:

  • Make a stop-gap call-up and then do Three Catcher Monty when Peña gets back
  • Call up Neftali Soto, who has hit well since being sent down and has been especially hot lately
  • Call up Donald Lutz - who's had a pretty good last two weeks in Louisville
Personally, I like the idea Cy floated in the recap thread. If Chapman's hamstring is OK - which I'm not even going to think about - they could easily get rid of the extra reliever and call up both Lutz and Soto. That would allow the team to have a full bench again and do some mix 'n' match at 1B. It would also allow Lutz to get into the LF mix a little.

John Fay's great and highly informative item on Votto's quad injury suggested Votto would need more than a standard DL stint to recover, while anything short of the offseason likely won't get him back to 100%. I wonder if we're looking at a month or more, in which case the Reds' will need to consider more than a stop-gap - especially on a team that was already hurting for production.




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