Cincinnati Reds activate Tucker Barnhart, place Robert Stephenson on IL

The Cincinnati Reds roster continued it’s revolving-door start to the 2020 season on Tuesday. This time, in included catcher Tucker Barnhart’s return from the paternity list - congrats, Barnharts! - but unfortunately saw Robert Stephenson placed on the 10-day IL with a back issue.

The Reds announced the moves on Twitter.

Perhaps of note is that Tucker returns while Tyler Stephenson, who homered last night in his big league debut, remains with the club. That means they’ll be carrying three catchers, along with super-utility guy Kyle Farmer for now, too.

What we did not hear today, however, was an update on either Mike Moustakas or Nick Senzel, both of whom were ‘not feeling well’ when they woke up on Sunday. Moose has been placed on the Injured List for the time being despite no word, no positive test of any kind being made public, while Senzel’s situation is even more nebulous since he’s not been given any sort of designation at all.

Perhaps related to that is a release from MLB put out earlier this afternoon, one whose details were relayed by The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans.

No positive tests since Friday July 24th, though Moose and Senzel began feeling ill on Sunday the 26th. So, either they did not test positive and are out with some other undisclosed issue, or their test results simply are not back yet, something that would show a long enough time-lag for all parties involved to be worried about the integrity of the testing process itself.

Rest assured, we’ll continue to hear numerous moving parts for the Reds, and all clubs, in the coming days, especially in the wake of the Miami Marlins outbreak that has already restructured the schedules of some 5 clubs just a handful of days into the season.