The Cincinnati Reds made official the optioning of IF/OF Ivan Johnson on Monday despite it being an off-day for the club ahead of their series in Chicago against the White Sox. They then gave us a full day to speculate on just what other roster moves lay in store as lefty Nick Lodolo was also expected to make his return to the roster for the series opener.
Lodolo is officially back as of Tuesday afternoon. The Reds made room on the pitcher-half of the roster by optioning Zach McCambley back to AAA
Louisville. For the position-player half of the ledger, though, the Reds selected the contract of former Colorado Rockies slugger Michael Toglia, doing so by moving Hunter Greene to the 60-day IL as the latter gets prepped for another season-ending elbow surgery.
The 6’5” Toglia is nominally listed as both an infielder and outfielder, and he does have 50 appearances on the grass from his four years spent with the Rockies. That said, he’s much more of a 1B/DH kind of guy and only got 2 appearances in the outfield with AAA Louisville. He strikes out a ton – 103 times in 97 AAA games this year – and he’s the owner of an obscene 35.0% K-rate in over 1000 big league PA, but he can also knock the snot out of the ball when he squares one up. He homered 25 times for Colorado in 2024 and socked 22 more in those 97 games with the Bats so far this year.
As for Lodolo, he’ll start tonight for the Reds against the White Sox after hopefully putting the long-running blister issues in his past. He’s been tweaking his grips on his breaking ball, and how effective that will be both a) against opposing hitters and b) in keeping the blister issues at arm’s length remains to be seen, but we’ll get a glimpse of his new approach this evening at Guaranteed Rate Field for Pope Hat night against the Sox.
The Reds will be up against righty Sean Burke, who has pitched to a tidy 3.08 ERA with 144 K in just 128.2 IP so far this year in a rock solid campaign. Despite the optimism of Toglia’s promotion, no, he won’t start at an infield corner opposite Sal Stewart – that job is reserved for Ke’Bryan Hayes again, for some reason.
Here’s how the Reds will line up for the 7:40 PM ET start:
