The bad news bear continues to just ravage the Cincinnati Reds. This afternoon right-handed pitcher Connor Overton said that an MRI on his back revealed that he had a stress reaction and that he would be unable to throw for 6-8 weeks as first reported by Mark Sheldon of Reds.com.

Sunday was supposed to be a scheduled start for Overton, but his back was sore and the team pushed his start back and let Graham Ashcraft make the start. Earlier today Ashcraft was sent back to the minors as he was a substitute player for the Toronto series. With Overton set to be out for nearly two months, it will be interesting to see if the team adds Ashcraft to the 40-man roster and calls him back up later this week to fill in for Overton.

Connor Overton was officially placed on the 60-day injured list retroactive to Friday.

After spending a few days on rehab assignment with the Triple-A Louisville Bats last week, outfielder Nick Senzel is back in Cincinnati. He told Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer that he will be in the lineup today. As of the publishing of this, no roster move has been made to activate Senzel and we will update this when that happens.

It will be 20 days since Senzel was last in the Reds lineup. He played in Milwaukee on May 3rd before going on the COVID injury list. 15 days after that he joined the Louisville Bats where he played in parts of four games while the team was in Nashville.

As alluded to above, Graham Ashcraft was sent back to Triple-A today. He was not the only one. Infielder Taylor Motter and outfielder Aristides Aquino were also sent back to Triple-A. They were all three substitute players for the Blue Jays series. With those guys returning to the minors and the team back from Canada, the Reds also reinstated from the restricted list reliever Joel Kuhnel, starter Tyler Mahle, infielder Brandon Drury, and outfielder Albert Almora Jr. TJ Friedl was also optioned back to Triple-A. Infielder Donovan Solano was transferred from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list as well. And now Aristides Aquino has been added back to the 40-man roster and to the 26-man roster.

Doug Gray is the owner of RedsMinorLeagues.com, Redleg Nation, and as you guessed it, passionate about the great sport of baseball. He's been writing about baseball since 2006 (contributions formerly at The Athletic and currently at Baseball America). You can keep tabs with him on twitter @dougdirt24.

That’s a bummer on Overton. He certainly was exciting to watch pitch. Have to wonder if these injuries are another downstream negative effect of the lockout. Players had no access to coaches/trainers/facilities or even checking it via text. They all did their own thing and then a rapid ramp up. Overton also had a spring training set back I recall and had to shut things down for a bit- I forget what it was.

Glad to see Senzel back. thats really what the rest of this eyar is about.

Sorting young arms in the bullpen so the Reds know what they have and don’t have in 2023. Getting Barrero, Senzel at bats every day. Developing Hunter Greene so he’s ready to pitch 180 innings in 2023 and hopefully getting Lodolo back and putting in some starts. Building trade value for Naquin/Castillo/Mahle and perhaps Pham and Cessa. Developing the high end prospects in the minors.

Castillo, Minor, Lodolo (big signing bonus) others with big league contracts for the last few years, in my opinion have no excuse for not being ready. Guys who make 7 figures and have been through ST and prep for a season should know what to do and they should be able to afford getting ready. Personal trainers are everywhere.

Guys like Overton are different. Minor league salary. They are lucky they can eat, much less afford extras, but we’re 6 weeks into the season. Why did he get hurt now. Lack of ST doesn’t explain it in my book.

One thing is sure about baseball. If you are a young player and you don’t know how to get ready for doing your job then you won’t have the job very long.

There lots of injuries around and probably much of it is players trying to throw it hard and torgue it as much as they can and spin it without sticky stuff and positional players training for explosiveness that isnt conditioned for the grind of an every day season. Fatigue sets in and the soft tissue injuries blow up

Overton has never pitched 8 innings as a professional but threw back to back gems going deep in the game. Players also are playing for a big contract so they arent running to the trainer to give up their roster spot or starting role. Scott Schebler was the worst. He ran into a wall in St Louis before the AS break and had 17 home runs. He wouldn’t admit his shoulder was significantly hurt, tried to play through it and was awful before he admitted a month later.

@Doc & Old-School – I agree and disagree. Yes, there was some difficulty getting ready for this year’s season. But, these guys are professional ball players. They have been around professional training staffs since they were 18 years old. They should know what to do and when to start doing it by now. Its a total cop-out to blame the injuries on teams, the lockout and anything else.

If they took their profession serious, they would be ready within a few weeks of the settlement of the lock-out. They all knew when the regular season start date was expected to be. You don’t see NFL or NBA players this unprepared for the start of their seasons.

We’re assuming that the injuries are due to poor conditioning and maybe they are. But my understanding is that most MLB players now continue to work on conditioning in the off-season. This was not the case in the old days, evidently: Guys would show up for spring training needing to use it to get back in shape and (in some cases) dry out. We also are assuming that there are more injuries now, and there may be be, but I haven’t looked into that. Has anyone else? I’ve seen it suggested that the injuries may be partly due to increased strength training, and I’ve seen it suggested that they’re a result of–particularly for pitchers–throwing harder.

Aquinas is no more than a AAA player at best. Lose him.

Well poop … hope some R&R will calm it down. I think he’s part of the future given how he’s pitched to date.

Let’s see if Nick S. can ramp things up. That’s one more expected starter back. Hoping others aren’t far behind.

The Reds really need to work on their conditioning/training programs or something. Far, far too many injuries at this level. Like to see Senzel show something for the rest of the year but sadly I think I’d be happy if he just played 100+ games this year.

LDS the sad thing is if he could play a 100 games I think he could put up some numbers.

This team just can not catch a break.

As flukish as some of these issues seem, I suspect the Reds are actually reverting to normal as far as injuries go.

Most of the offense is back or close to returning. Solano is the notable still not ready. Pitching is always subject to random absences, but the lockout comment above also highlights this years status.

The abysmal start certainly sank this year, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they play well from here on out. The MiLB pool still needs offensive attention but they seem to have turned the corner on pitching depth, if not yet at the MLB level.

Stinks to hear about Overton. I don’t think it has anything to do with Reds conditioning program or anything. Injuries are up all over mlb. I agree seems like maybe the rapid spring training and players being locked out of facilities may have something to do with it.

If one bright spot for Reds its the development of some of the young arms this year. Satallin, Diaz, Lodolo, Ashcraft, and Greene. I am sure a few others.

I was looking at Senzel’s stats recently and when he has played more than 50 games he isn’t that bad of a player. Sadly 2020 and 2021 he hasn’t played much. Remember 19 was his rookie season, so he is still a work in progress. I am happy he is back and hopefully we see India soon!!

I thought minor league ST was not affected by the lockout.

Great point, I didn’t think about that. Pitching injuries seem to be a thing this season though. Any number of reason’s.

Just saw where AA is back with the club and Farmer is out.. Interesting.

Where did you see that Farmer is out? I haven’t seen any moves officially announced on Twitter or the team website.

I now see on Twitter that he is out today with soreness.

Charlie Goldsmith on his twitter feed

Farmer has been having this soreness for a while now. It may portend a quicker recall of Barrero (from rehab) than might have been planned otherwise.

What is happening this year with Los Rojos is quite unusual. As soon as a player stands out in his performance and is helping the team, he gets injured. This is something never seen before.

It’s really hard to know what to say about all of these injuries. Is it all bad luck? Just some bad luck? Wow. This team has to be approaching some sort of dubious milestone for the number of players on the injured list.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/injuries.

Seems every team is going through same thing.

i think part of it is the culture that Bell has created in a way. And i DON’T necessarily think it is a bad thing. instead of trying to play through injuries or soreness players are more at ease relaying their symptoms to the training staff. and “out of abundance of caution” players are given days off or put on the dl instead of trying to fight through it

I wonder if the ratio of strengthening to flexibility training is skewed too far toward the strengthening side. Muscles that are bulked up without adequate increased flexibility are prone to injury.

That really stinks, Overton was starting to feel like a steadying presence in the Rotation. Upside I guess is Ashcraft should get the call up, unless they fill the spot with Gutierrez.

do you realize how tough this is on Bell with all the injuries? He’s probably had to tear up two months’ worth of line up cards.

Maybe he’ll go on the IL with repetitive strain syndrome of the wrists from tearing up all those cards!

mlb had Aquino sent back to the minors-he is in the starting line up, ?

Yep. Haven’t seen the transaction hit the wire yet, so I don’t know who he’s up for and under what circumstances. Did Overton go on the IL? Is Farmer on the COVID list for some unexplained illness?

Inquiring minds want to know …

Overton to 60 day IL and Farmer out today with general soreness. Solano to 60 day IL which creates roster space for AA to be added to 40 and 26 man roster.

Senzel off Covid IL and back in the lineup leading off in CF. I’m thinking Lopez will get sent down when Detwiler comes off of the bereavement list and the Reds will be at 13-13 until they need a starter on 5/27.

Friedl sent down and opened a spot

What’s the count of pitchers vs. position players on the 26 now?

Apparently, Almora was technically a COVID related substitute player; and, since Senzel came back from that list they had to also do a fancy 2 step with Almora to keep him up.

On paper, he was returned to AAA from substitute status then his contract was selected. That used the 2nd 40 man slot created with the 2 guys going onto the 60 day IL.

One 26 man slot was opened with the Overton move from active to 60 day IL, the other with the Friedl option.

Senzel has the worst luck of any player I have ever seen. Just as a joke (not bashing Senzel) but how many games before he is hurt again?

Man, lol… hopefully has a great rest of the season.

Senzel is just an average player at best who gets hurt every time he bends over. We should not even talk about him anymore. He has never even been good in the big show for more than a couple of weeks.

He has been in the league 4 years now. His first year he had a solid year. Second season and last season have been more of a struggle. To suggest he hasn’t been good is simply not ture. He is still young and has alot of baseball ahead of him.

@kevinZ. Since his rookie year in 2019, Senzel hasn’t just been not good, he has been terrible. Far below replacement player level. Most teams wouldn’t even have him on the active roster with his production level. We have him on the active roster because we drafted him and have zero outfield depth.

If you watch the games, Almora and Friedl are better defensive outfielders than he is. So he has to make it up by being better offensively. He is actually worse than Almora offensively and has zero power in his list 230 at bats. I do feel for him but its time to move on.

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