Christian Encarnacion-Strand is dealing with ligament damage in his right wrist and could be forced to undergo season-ending surgery. Encarnacion-Strand was placed on the 10-day injured list in May.
The 24-year-old has posted a .190/.220/.293 slash line with two home runs in 29 games this season.
Meanwhile, starter Brandon Williamson has a lesion in his shoulder and could miss the rest of the season if he has to undergo surgery. It’s unfortunate for both players and for the Reds.
Both Encarnacion-Strand and Williamson were expected to be major conrtibutors this season.
Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz stole four bases in Cincinnati’s 2-1 loss to the Rays on Sunday.
He’s just the third player in Reds history that has stolen four bases in multiple games in the same season. Billy Hamilton and Gary Redus also accomplished that feat.
De La Cruz has 55 stolen bases. It’s the most for a Reds player since Hamilton in 2017. If he gets to 60 steals, it’ll be the most since Eric Davis stole 80 bases in 1986.
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How Cincinnati Reds’ Struggles Compare to Previous Years and Other Contending Teams
The Cincinnati Reds eight-game losing streak has put them at 16-21 six weeks into the 2024 season. This stretch of losing has zapped any enthusiasm from Reds country.
Let’s put their current struggles in perspective.
We expected the Reds to contend this season. They are still very much capable of doing that, as long as they don’t dig themselves into too deep of a hole to overcome. If you are of the opinion they may have already done this, let’s consider where they are now in relation to where they’ve been at this point in previous seasons.
The Reds had this exact same record at this point last year. Granted, the roster was still in flux at that point, but really is the roster completely set for this year’s Reds? Even still, the Reds were in a playoff spot at one point last year and were only eliminated on the second-to-last day of the season. While it seems as though some games have slipped away from the Reds, so far, there is still plenty of time for them to rebound.
The 2022 season was a loss, and one of the worst in franchise history, so we won’t dig into that. The Reds came close, again, to the playoffs in 2021 and were under-.500 after 37 games. Granted, they were 18-19, but they hadn’t yet found their groove. Baseball is unlike any other sport in that a team can get into deep grooves, both good and bad.
A comparison of a different team, yet similar scenario, would be this year’s Minnesota Twins. On April 21, they were 7-13 with a team batting average of .195 and averaged 3.4 runs per game. In the 17 games since then, Minnesota is 15-2, hitting .292 as a team, and averaging 6.6 runs per game.
The Reds’ lineup appears to be breaking out of its collective slump over the past two games. As annoying as eight losses in a row have been, they had enough talent to go on a similar run to the Twins. Doing so will put them right back into the position they want to be in this season.
