C. Trent Rosecrans

crosecrans@enquirer.com

The Reds are in a holding pattern with right-hander Homer Bailey, who is on the disabled list with a strained flexor mass tendon in his right arm. Bailey had an ultrasound and second MRI recently because he was not progressing as the Reds had hoped after a platelet-rich plasma injection.

Trainer Paul Lessard said Reds medical director Dr. Timothy Kremchek has a theory about what is wrong, but has sent the scans out to other orthopedists around baseball for multiple opinions.

"Right now we're in a holding pattern for those orthopedic guys to give us the final (word)," Lessard said.

Bailey went on the disabled list Aug. 16.

"(Bailey) is, unfortunately, very frustrated, but unfortunately I have to think about his arm for the future as well, not just the next four weeks," Lessard said. "We have to think about what's best for him, not just the next four weeks."

Manager Bryan Price said he was also disappointed in the news.

"I know it hasn't healed as well as we'd like to have it healed. That will prevent him from starting his throwing program as soon as we'd hoped," Price said. "As far as where we go from here, I'm not sure. We were hoping for more progress and there wasn't as much as we'd hoped and that prohibits us from initiating a throwing session."

MESORACO STRUGGLING: After Sunday's game, Reds catcher Devin Mesoraco did something that raised a few eyebrows – he went straight to the batting cage.

Mired in a slump – Mesoraco entered Wednesday's game 1-for-his-last-31 over 10 games – the All-Star catcher is doing the only thing he knew to do – work out of it.

"That was more just frustration than anything," Mesoraco said. "You keep working, keep trying to figure it out and try to find the swing you had when you were going good. You know at some point it's going to turn around and you just want to make it as short as possible."

Sunday's extra batting practice was more to let out some steam than anything else, he said. He's also put in a little more time in the weight room to try to work out that frustration.

"This is a very performance-based game, I expect a lot out of myself. It's very frustrating," Mesoraco said. "It's all you can do is keep working, work through it and hopefully it'll turn around. The last couple of games, I've felt better, I thought I swung the bat OK, I just couldn't find any hits. You just keep working, working, working and at some point I expect to get some more hits, it's just a question of when."