When Nick Lodolo went on the injured list the plan was that he would miss one start and then return the next time around – missing the minimum number of days after feeling something in his lower back during his last start. Things were going as planned after he threw a bullpen session this week and was listed as the probable starter on Saturday. But all of that changed on Friday after he felt some soreness in his back after throwing – as first reported by Mark Sheldon on Reds.com.
If the Cincinnati Reds didn’t have bad luck, they wouldn’t have any luck at all. They currently have 14 players on the injured list. That’s the most in all of Major League Baseball. Luis Castillo is expected to join the team this week after he completed his rehab start with Louisville earlier this week…. but as we see with Lodolo, not everything goes as planned even when it seems that everything is going to plan.
With Lodolo out for an undetermined amount of time going forward, Cincinnati’s rotation remains a big question mark. This afternoon they are starting Connor Overton and tonight they’ll start Robert Dugger. The Reds starting rotation enters the day having allowed 99 earned runs in 100.0 innings. That’s an ERA of 8.91 through 25 games played. Adding Luis Castillo will likely help, but things are going about as poorly as one can imagine. Of course that’s also how you end up 3-22 on the season and having the second worst start in Major League Baseball history.
Among the pitchers to start at least three games this season, Nick Lodolo’s ERA of 5.52 is easily the best. Tyler Mahle’s got the next lowest ERA at 7.01. Then you just into the 8’s with Hunter Greene and Vladimir Gutierrez before you get to Reiver Sanmartin and his 13.78 ERA (he’s now in Triple-A Louisville).
Hi Doug – These are indeed times that try our souls (tip of the Wishbone “C” cap to literary all-star Billy Shakespeare). Insult has been metastasized by injury. Keep your head up and keep saying, “It’s only a game. it’s only a game.”
Oh man. Things are really bad. Along with the injuries, you just gave credit to an Englishman for a quote from American Thomas Paine during the darkest days of the Revolution. The “try men’s souls” line is the opener of his pamphlet called simply “The American Crisis.” Think its safe to call this “The Redleg Crisis.”
The hits just keep on coming. This team has as many players on the I.L. as some teams do in two seasons.
It scares me that Nick and Hunter are going to end up like Kerry Wood and Mark Pryor.
Boy the injuries are just relentless with this team. I thought some of those Bryan Price teams were bad injury wise, when the injuries just kept coming. But this season looks like it could end up being worse, geez.
As someone noted, the injuries are relentless. And since it’s been a trend for a while, maybe it’s time to start figuring out why.
Maybe they should look at the way they are trained. This has been going on for several years