Price: Reds should have handled Bruce injury differently

GOODYEAR, Ariz. - Reds manager Bryan Price admitted that the Reds should have handled things differently with Jay Bruce after his knee surgery. Bruce only missed two weeks after the May 6 surgery last season.

Bruce struggled upon his return, hitting career-lows of .217 and 18 home runs.

"It's an after-the-fact thing," Price said. "If I could have known how it was going to turn out, I would have sent him out and let him do some rehab and really verify that he was feeling great. But there were a lot of components in that decision. We were scuffling. He was trying to be that responsible, middle-of-the-order player. We had injuries at the time. We weren't playing terribly well.

"Of course, we put him through all the paces. There wasn't anything he didn't do, except play. In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to play for four or five days. But I'm saying this after the fact. He passed all the tests. He got the thumbs. We went with it. I don't think we saw Jay Bruce at 100 percent any time after the injury last year."