The last time we saw Cincinnati Reds closer Emilio Pagán was on May 4th, and it wasn’t at all pretty. For the second straight appearance, he’d yielded 2 ER while on the mound, but that day things took a turn for the terrible when he seriously injured his hamstring and went down in a heap of pain.
The last time we saw the Cincinnati Reds bullpen without Pagán was on Monday night in Milwaukee. Staked to a 3-0 lead, it folded immediately again in what became a 5-3 loss to the division-owning Brewers. The loss sunk the Reds back to 5 games under the .500 mark and once again exposed the single weakest portion of the club who has owned last place in the National League Central more often than not for most of my adult life.
On Tuesday, we’re set to begin seeing the reconciliation of the two.
According to Charlie Goldsmith of Fox 19, Pagán will be activated on Tuesday and will resume operating as the team’s closer. It’s a vital re-addition to a unit that’s been decimated by injuries to their key performers all season, a group that’s still without Graham Ashcraft and Tony Santillan after each of Pierce Johnson and Caleb Ferguson also missed significant time already during this season’s first half.
The news came in a swath of a relatively good news dump, as Goldsmith notes that Hunter Greene will return to the rotation this weekend, that Eugenio Suarez’s hand is not actually broken after being plunked, and that Elly De La Cruz is recovering well from the tweak to his ankle from the play in Pittsburgh.
It’s not exactly great news to be reading about the health status of five key players, but at least all the estimates are trending to the positive.
Anyway, Emilio & Co. will immediately be tasked with picking this season up off the mat as the Reds are buried 12.5 games back in the Central and 5 games back of the final NL Wild Card spot (with four teams they’d need to jump to earn that backdoor ticket into the playoffs again). With just 34 days remaining until the August 3rd trade deadline, the Reds have to be piling on the wins in bunches in a hurry if they’re to convince anyone they’re anything other than sellers, so at least they’re beginning to get their full roster back in play.
Let’s just hope it isn’t already too late.
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