Zach Buchanan

zbuchanan@enquirer.com

GOODYEAR, Ariz. - Brandon Finnegan apparently hadn’t heard. As a reporter relayed the news Sunday morning, the smile dropped off his face and he silently walked from the clubhouse entrance to his locker at the Cincinnati Reds’ spring training complex.

There, Finnegan collected himself and offered a reaction to the latest of rotation-mate Anthony DeSclafani’s injury woes. The 26-year-old DeSclafani had experienced elbow soreness for the second time in the last two weeks. He was headed back to Cincinnati to get an MRI.

“It sucks,” Finnegan said. “I want him to be healthy. I want him to start the season with us. I want him to end it with us. It definitely makes you angry.”

As the Reds await final word on DeSclafani’s diagnosis – he will at the least start the year on the disabled list – the Reds spent Sunday attempting to wrap their heads around his potential absence. It’s a shockingly familiar feeling.

Last spring, DeSclafani was ticketed to be the team’s Opening Day starter before a late-spring oblique injury felled him for several months. He also missed a start due to fatigue late in the season, although that did not merit a trip to the DL.

They’ll again be without him to start the season, although how long is yet to be determined. Before the Reds react, they want a better sense of his timetable.

“I’m still very hopeful that the situation with Disco is a minor setback,” said Dick Williams, the team’s general manager. “But I won’t know until the doctors give us more information.”

The elbow problem first cropped up for DeSclafani two weeks ago, on Feb. 27. The team performed an ultrasound scan and shut him down from throwing for a few days. DeSclafani said he wasn’t concerned – he’d dealt with similar issues in previous springs and always came out fine.

He was cleared to resume throwing three days later. He’d completed two bullpen sessions since, and was set to make his Cactus League debut Monday. But after the most recent bullpen, the soreness returned. Another ultrasound revealed similar problems as before, and the Reds decided it was prudent to dig a little deeper and send him for an MRI.

“Everything up until now hasn’t risen to the level of needing to go to the MRI,” Williams said. “I think they want to do that now to rule out what they can rule out.”

Whether DeSclafani misses a day or a month of the regular season, the Reds were already in a precarious position when it comes to filling out their rotation. With right-hander Homer Bailey out until June after bone spur surgery and Dan Straily traded to the Miami Marlins, the Reds currently have only two starters with significant major-league experience who are on track for Opening Day – Finnegan and free agent addition Scott Feldman.

Finnegan has one successful year as a starter under his belt, and Feldman is a veteran who was kicked to the bullpen by two teams last season. Behind them is a host of young unproven pitchers who could come up and wow. Or, like last season with Robert Stephenson and Cody Reed, they could come up and struggle.

Compared to recent years, the Reds do have a deeper bench of higher-caliber pitching prospects to run through to provide innings. But none of those innings are very predictable.

“A lot of pitchers on the board that we really think very highly of and I’m very confident they will be outstanding big league pitchers,” manager Bryan Price said. “But that first taste of the big leagues going into a starting rotation that might have as many as three rookies in it, there is the need for reliable innings, or else it necessitates going into a season with an eight-man bullpen. Nobody really wants to do that.”

If the Reds want to add from outside the current mix of young starter prospects, there are some challenges. The team has veteran Bronson Arroyo in camp on a minor-league deal, but his health after more than two years dealing with elbow and shoulder surgeries is every bit the question mark as DeSclafani’s. At the back of the bullpen are former starters Michael Lorenzen and Raisel Iglesias, but only Lorenzen would be a candidate to switch roles and Price stressed the organization is nowhere near considering such a move.

That leaves additions from outside the organization. The Reds could make an opportunistic waiver claim like they did with Straily a year ago, but results aren’t exactly guaranteed going that route. There are several experienced starters available via free agency, but there’s a reason they’re all still available in the middle of March.

“We are always very opportunistic, whether it’s the free agent market, whether it’s the waiver wire,” Williams said. “We’re always looking and trying to build depth and trying to make contingency plans. We’ll continue to be aggressive there.”

Last year, the Reds added Alfredo Simon on March 17, only to find he was not in playing shape and did not have the runway left in spring training to prepare for the season. He still began the year in the rotation but fought shoulder issues and poor performance.

Even if the Reds make an addition, the best case scenario is for several young pitchers to seize the opportunity before them. Finnegan is only 23, but he’s been there and is ready to help.

“They’ve done very well in the minor leagues and they’ve earned their chance to be up here,” he said of a prospect group that includes Reed, Stephenson, Rookie Davis, Amir Garrett, Sal Romano and Luis Castillo. “They’re not going to have any problem with getting acclimated. I think the thing they’ll most have a problem with is dealing with the failure, and that’s something that I thought I did alright with last year. I might be able to help them there.”