A new sun rises on the 2025 Reds season.
The Cincinnati Reds have weathered their way through the season’s first 16 games and emerged at an even .500. They shrugged off the brutal Opening Day bullpen collapse. They shed the stigma of offensive woe that came with losing three straight games by the score of 1-0.
Maybe, just maybe, they’ve weathered the worst of the injury crisis, too.
The Reds officially activated each of Alexis Díaz, Austin Hays, and Matt McLain on Tuesday ahead of a home series against the Seattle Mariners, adding depth to both their offense and bullpen in big, big ways.
The #Reds today announced the following transactions: pic.twitter.com/jJGh1mW9bZ
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 15, 2025
Following the placement of reliever Sam Moll on the IL yesterday, each of Jacob Hurtubise and Noelvi Marte were optioned to AAA to make room on the active roster. That’s especially a bummer for Marte, I’d wager, considering a) his former club (Seattle) and the guy he was trade for (Luis Castillo) are in town and on the mound tonight and b) both Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand are banged up and struggling mightily at the moment.
In Díaz, the Reds get their closer of the last three seasons back, though it remains to be seen whether he’ll jump back into that role immediately. His struggles with both velocity and mechanics were eventually attributed to the hamstring issue that sent him to the IL to begin this season, and his results in limited work while rehabbing in AAA weren’t exactly lights-out.
Hays, meanwhile, will debut for his new club after a calf injury similar to the one that derailed much of his 2024 season is hopefully in the rearview mirror. Though he’s neither a true masher or plus defender, he was the Big Offensive Offseason Signing™ for the Reds and will presumably take over the role of cleanup hitter from Gavin Lux, who’s been horribly miscast there for much of the last two weeks, and will also stake a daily claim to a corner OF spot. Considering Cincinnati outfielders own a collective 47 wRC+ this year (2nd worst in the majors), literally anything of note from him will be a boon, I suppose.
(No team has fewer total homers from their outfielders than the one (1) from the Reds so far.)
Finally, there’s McLain, who was off to a rocket start before injury once again befell him. His stay on the IL was short (and he needed no rehab stint), so hopefully he’s once again ready to jump right back into leading the line for the Reds bats.