The Cincinnati Reds initially had third baseman Mike Moustakas in their starting lineup today. But just before 6pm ET, less than an hour before the start of the game, the Reds announced that he had instead been placed on the 10-day injured list with a non-COVID related illness retroactively to Saturday. The team also activated Alex Blandino who was on the injured list.
The timing with Mike Moustakas is interesting as he hasn’t played since April 14th when the team was in San Francisco. He’s been out ever since as he’s been dealing with an illness of some sort. With the suspension of Nick Castellanos leaving the team without his services for the next two days, not having Moustakas available would leave the bench short two players.
Of course, rosters today are now 26 players. It was just two years ago that they were 25 players, and teams would usually find a way to play a guy short for a few days instead of going without a guy for a week-and-a-half because they would just miss a few days. It feels like there was a chance that something else could have been done in order to not miss so much time. But, as always – there’s stuff we may not know about that the team does.
Alex Blandino rejoined the team from the injured list to fill out the roster. He was only on the injured list for three days. But he’s back now and apparently good to go.
Confused I thought the injured list was minimum of 10 days? How is he able to come back so soon?
You can retroactive it from when the “injury” began. Since he last played the 14th, he can come back on the 24th/25th.
I think he’s talking about Blandino. How is he back after just 3 days on injury list?
He was put on the “non-designated” injury list. While teams don’t say “COVID” list unless the player says it’s ok, that version of the injured list has no “time limit” to it. You can be on and off of it in 1 day or 100 days. The only thing is you are required to be “out” 10 days if you test positive. But that isn’t the only reason one can be put on that list. If you get that 24-48 hour side effect after your vaccine, a team can place you on that same injured list and remove you within a day if you are feeling better.
All of that, of course, is speculation as Alex Blandino, nor the Reds, have said anything publicly about what happened there. But you can infer what you want based on the rules as to what happened.
Hope he heals fully. I will say I hope they use the opportunity to get Senzel some innings at 2b/3b. If now is the chance to get him some MLB experience at those positions, I am not sure when would be.
I really hope Senzel gets out of his hitting slump soon. Need him to really produce. Whatever position he plays.
I would have to check the gamelogs to confirm (Cleveland market and blackout rules make it hard to catch as many game live as I would like) but one of the first world problems with Naquin’s fast start is that I feel like he has not started as many games as you might hope in an ideal world. Health permitting it would be nice to see him start consistently for 2 or 3 months without any platoon to see what you have.
I agree. He needs to get in the games, but when he gets in, he needs to start getting on base. It’s tough having to deal with other OFs but he has to overcome that problem.