CHICAGO – Emilio Pagán dropped to the ground after one pitch, clutched his left hamstring, rolled over in pain and punched the grass.
By the time the cart carried Pagán off the field Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, it seemed like the competitive heart of the Cincinnati Reds’ battered pitching staff went with him.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow,” catcher Jose Trevino said. “As one of our leaders, one of our captains, one of the dudes that cares about this team more than a lot of us, he’s a big, big pice of this.”
The Reds expected to learn more after an MRI Friday morning what the severity of the injury is and how long it might sideline their closer, who was pressed into ninth-inning duty early last season and went to earn career-high 32 saves with a produced a 2.88 ERA.
Pagán will join four other key Reds pitchers on the injured list, including rotation ace Hunter Greene, who’s expected to be out until around the trade deadline after undergoing elbow surgery in March to remove bone chips.
The loss of Pagán might be as significant as any of them because of the influence he has off the mound in the clubhouse and bullpen, an influence the Reds valued enough to spend more on him as a free agent ($20 million, two years) than anyone else over the winter.
“He’s our head guy back there,” setup man Tony Santillan said. “He’s our voice. He’s our leader. Anytime you see somebody like that go down, it never feels good for anybody. Especially when you see him come in see how upset and (see) some tears. That does something to everybody.”
Pagán had struggled early this season, including missing a few days last month because of tightness in the same hamstring. Whether that was directly related to this, Francona said Pagán told him he didn’t feel anything in the area leading up to the ninth-inning pitch against the Chicago Cubs’ Nico Hoerner.
Either way, the loss impacts the Reds deeper than the pain of backfilling the back end of the bullpen.
“He’s such an integral part of what we do,” Francona said. “He’s struggling right now, and we’ve got to be there for him.”
The Reds might get veteran left-handed reliever Caleb Ferguson back from the IL sometime around the middle of the month.
And they can lean on the likes of Santillan or Graham Ashcraft or a bigger committee to handle the ninth inning for this playoff-minded team, maybe even long-term this season.
But the latest loss to the staff also comes at a time they’ve given up late-inning runs to lose by one run in each of the last three games of a season-high five-game losing streak.
“Snakebit?” Trevino said, repeating part of a question. “I don’t know if I’m going to use the word ‘snakebit.’ I’ll use the word ‘baseball.’ Things are going to happen. Baseball’s unpredictable. It’s up to our team to keep playing.”
Making it tougher is the fact the bullpen already was trying to fight out of a group slump. The Reds lead the National League in walks allowed, thanks in large part to a pen that leads MLB with more than six walks per nine innings.
They’re in the middle of the pack in ERA but are ranked last in the NL in bullpen WAR.
“It’s tough, man. But we’re going to be resilient about it,” Trevino said. “EP would want us to be resilient about it.”
That’s likely to take some heavier contributions from younger pitchers.
“Emilio has done a great job with those guys (in the pen) since last year, shaping some of these guys that are going to be able to handle these bigger roles that they’re going to get,” Trevino added. “And I would imagine that Emilio’s going to be right there by them to help them.”
Frontline starter Nick Lodolo also expected back from the IL for a season debut Friday against Houston, and that could be an overall stabilizing influence if his blister issues are behind him.
But seeing the amount of pain Pagán was in Tuesday night might as well have been a measure of the loss to the team.
“It’s a big blow to the bullpen,” Santillan said. “But we’ve got the guys back there. We’re in a little bit of a skid here. But everyone believes in each other.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Loss for Reds of bullpen leader Emilio Pagán ‘tough pill to swallow’
Reporting by Gordon Wittenmyer, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
