Cincinnati’s rotation took another heavy hit Friday, and this one comes with an uncertain road ahead for Hunter Greene.
Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall said Greene has a partial tear of the ligament in his right elbow and will have surgery sometime next week. The right-hander is finished for the season, but the team still does not know exactly how extensive the injury is until the procedure is done, according to RedsTV broadcaster Brian Giesenschlag.
Greene had already gone to Los Angeles for a second opinion from Dr. Neal ElAttrache after the injury first surfaced earlier this week. That kind of follow-up usually points to a concern that goes beyond routine soreness, and now the Reds are waiting on surgery to reveal the full picture.
The bigger question is what comes after that. Greene’s 2026 season is over, but his return timeline remains unclear. Depending on what doctors find during the operation, Tommy John surgery or an internal brace procedure could be on the table.
This is also not Greene’s first elbow procedure of the year. He had arthroscopic surgery in March to remove loose bodies from the elbow, then spent about three months on the shelf before rejoining the big-league club in July. Whatever comes next figures to require a longer recovery than that.
The injuries have become an all-too-familiar theme in Greene’s Reds career. The former first-round pick has averaged fewer than 20 starts per season and has crossed the 150-inning mark only once. That is a long way from the pitcher Cincinnati committed to with a six-year extension in 2023.
Greene and Nick Lodolo arrived in 2022 with the expectation that they would anchor the Reds’ future rotation. Instead, both have battled repeated injuries, with each missing extended time on the injured list over the first five years of their major league careers.
Still, Cincinnati has kept winning. Even without Greene, the Reds have been one of the league’s hottest teams since the All-Star break and sit four games out of the final NL Wild Card spot. The club may need to look outside the organization to help absorb the loss, and former Reds starter Zack Littell has just become available.
In Other News...
Reds Just Sent A Strong Message About Their Next Infield Hope
The Reds wasted little time pushing their newest infield investment into the upper levels of the system, sending Becker straight to High-A after bringing him aboard. The shortstop out of Virginia arrived with the kind of collegiate rsum that made him an attractive second-round addition, and Cincinnati is clearly treating him like a player who should be challenged early rather than eased along at the lower rungs.
For a farm system always looking for the next everyday option in the middle of the diamond, the assignment says plenty about how the Reds view his timeline. The move also came as the organization elevated top-30 pitching prospect Edgar Colon to High-A Dayton, another sign that the club is sorting through some intriguing young talent while it waits to see which arms and bats can handle the next test. [Read more 🡒]
Reds Prospect Pipeline Has 2 Names Rising And 1 Still Waiting
Hctor Rodrguezs Major League debut this season was another reminder that the Reds farm system keeps feeding the big-league roster, with Rodrguez becoming the sixth player from the organization to reach Cincinnati this year. It has been a useful run of development for a club that has leaned on young talent, and the pipeline still has more names worth tracking as the season turns toward its final stretch.
Jose Acua and Carlos Jorge are both in Triple-A and remain the most obvious candidates to be next if the Reds find themselves looking deeper into the organization later in 2026. Leo Balcazar, meanwhile, is still working his way through the minors after some performance issues, and the expectation is that he will stay there through next season rather than force his way into the active roster. [Read more 🡒]
Brandon Williamson Just Raised A Tough Reds Rotation Question
Brandon Williamsons path back to the Reds took another shaky turn this week, and it comes at a time when the rotation picture is already getting crowded. Williamson last appeared in a major league game on April 29 before landing on the injured list with left-shoulder fatigue, and his latest step in Triple-A Louisville was supposed to move him closer to Cincinnati. Instead, it left the club with even more to think about as Nick Lodolo nears a return and the staff keeps one eye on how to manage Chase Burns.
The bigger issue is no longer just whether Williamson is healthy enough to help, but how the Reds fit him in if he is. Cincinnati has enough moving parts in the rotation that Williamsons next stop could depend as much on roster math as on his arm, and that makes his comeback an uneasy one to sort out. The club also has some recent momentum at the plate, with four top hitters, including JJ Bleday, going deep in a recent game, but the pitching side now has a decision that could shape the next stretch of the season. [Read more 🡒]