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The ink had barely dried from the news that Tony Cingrani would be on the 10-day DL for the Cincinnati Reds for the near future when some more surprising news came across the wire. It appears that - at least for a short time - the Reds will call up OF Phillip Ervin to fill Cingrani’s spot on the roster, with the former 1st round draftee from 2013 getting his first taste of the big leagues. MILB.com's Sam Dykstra was first on the news.
#Reds No. 20 prospect Phillip Ervin is being recalled for his MLB debut. .882 OPS, 3 HR in 14 G for @LouisvilleBats: https://t.co/PGI9celzDI
— Sam Dykstra (@SamDykstraMiLB) April 21, 2017
The Louisville Bats later confirmed that Ervin would be getting the call, which is somewhat significant since Ervin's only played 13 games with the AAA club after spending all of 2016 with AA Pensacola. In those 13 games, however, he's hit quite well, belting a trio of dingers, and at 24 years old (and 25 in July), he's hardly lacking in overall baseball experience.
Ervin's trek through the minors hasn't exactly gone as well as his initial foray into professional baseball suggested. After mashing his way to a .989 OPS between rookie ball in Billings and Class A Dayton in 2013, Ervin ranked as the #63 overall prospect in the game, according to Baseball Prospectus. However, slumps along the way in the extremely pitcher-friendly confines of Daytona and Pensacola dimmed the light on his prospect status, but there were enough signs in his overall performance to suggest there might still be a breakout left for Ervin along the way. In fact, we even wrote about it, with one nerdblogger even suggesting that 2017 would be the year where he finally was in the right position to rake again.
Ervin was already on the 40-man roster, so this'll bookend the placement of Cingrani on the 10-day DL. However, with Rookie Davis and Devin Mesoraco both poised to rejoin the active roster within the week and the team's potential call-up of a reliever to take Cingrani's spot all likely on the horizon, it's hard to envision this particular call-up as anything more than what Jesse Winker got to experience this time a week ago. Still, it'll hopefully get Phil some dugout experience and even an at-bat or two.
Congrats, Phil.