It’s never good news to find out that your team’s closer is going to be sidelined with a serious hamstring injury, and it’s definitely no fun to hear that he may be out for most of two months. However, given how bad last night’s injury looked for Cincinnati Reds closer Emilio Pagan, that’s actually a lot better than I think most all of us expected to hear.
It’s better than Pagan himself expected, too, as he was convinced his season was done.
The diagnosis is a Grade 2 strain, and he’ll be out for 4-8
weeks, per The Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer.
The Reds placed Pagan on the 15-day IL earlier on Wednesday as part of a larger roster shuffle.
If it’s the short-end of the timeline, we could see Pagan back with the Reds around the first week of June. Even if it’s on the longer side of the estimate, that would put him back with the club for the final week or two before the All Star break in July.
In other words, despite the ugly way it looked last night, we may even see him in a Reds uniform before we see the return of Hunter Greene.
That’s excellent news to a bullpen that’s already had its share of troubles with Pagan around. In the meantime, the club recalled Tejay Antone to help backfill the bullpen, activated Pierce Johnson off the bereavement list, and is anticipating the return of lefty Caleb Ferguson in roughly a week after he’s already looked good in a pair of rehab assignments with AA Chattanooga.
Get well soon, Emilio.
