Reds' Devin Mesoraco to undergo hip surgery June 29

Reds catcher Devin Mesoraco will have season-ending surgery to repair the impingement in his left hip on June 29 in New York. The surgery will be performed by Dr. Bryan Kelly and he will be assisted by Reds medical director Dr. Timothy Kremchek.

Mesoraco will travel with the team this week to Pittsburgh and New York and then stay in New York to have the surgery with Kelly, who is one of the leaders in this type of surgery.

"I'll be perfectly fine. I expect to be able to start my offseason workouts the same time I would, beginning of November. I expect to start my catching and everything the beginning of January, the same time I normally would," Mesoraco said before Saturday's game against the Marlins. "This certainly hasn't messed up the timing for next year at all. What we were trying to do was get it possible so I could help out this year and it hasn't. This is the right time to go ahead and get it done."

Mesoraco appeared in 23 games this season, but none behind the plate after the first week of the season, and was limited to just pinch-hitting and designated hitter duties. He attempted a comeback in the outfield at Triple-A Louisville, but after two games in left field, he left the third early and shut down that attempt.

"I think after I got hurt in Louisville, it was just a matter of time — we've tried this, we've tried that," Mesoraco said. "At this timetable, the way things will play out for me to be 100 percent going into next year, this was the time to get it done. After that didn't work, we just finalized the details."

The Reds have been criticized with the way they handled Mesoraco's injury throughout the season. He was on the active roster until May 25. He attempted to return to catching drills when the Reds were in Kansas City and in the series against the White Sox, aggravating the injury and causing him to miss opportunities to DH.

"Looking back, the only thing I wish we would have done differently is whenever I was going to DH and I was feeling good in Kansas City," Mesoraco said. "I was hoping we would have waited to try to catch and stuff — but I didn't expect it to be so painful, because I was feeling fine. I didn't expect it to aggravate it because after all the shots I got, I was feeling good. I didn't wait until after I was supposed to DH because I was anxious to try it out and that limited me in what I could do DH-wise. But other than that, I feel like we've done everything perfectly fine."

Mesoraco is obviously not happy about having to have surgery and ending his year, but he did say he's glad to finally have everything settled.

"To have a concrete plan and a direction on some things is definitely nice," he said. "This is not what I wanted, I expected to be able to go out there and be able to play and it just hasn't worked out that way. This is kind of the next step."